Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

PORT OF LONDON BILL (By Order)

Read a Second time and committed.

BRIGHTON MARINA BILL (By Order)

Second Reading deferred till Monday, 13th March, at Seven o'clock.

GLASGOW CORPORATION ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL

Read the Third time and passed.

GREENOCK CORPORATION ORDER CONFIRMATION

Bill to confirm a Provisional Order under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act 1936, relating to Greenock Corporation, presented by Mr. W. Ross (under Section 7 of the Act); and ordered to be considered upon Wednesday next; and to be printed. [Bill 201.]

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

Play Centres

Mr. Frank Allaun: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science when he will seek powers to implement the recommendation of the Plowden Report that, as an interim measure, Government financial assistance be given to local authorities to help establish and maintain play centres.

The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mrs. Shirley Williams): There is no specific recommendation relating to play centres in the Plowden Report. The Council did, however, recommend that, until enough main-

tained places are available, local education authorities should be given power to give financial or other assistance to nursery groups run by non-profit-making associations. It is not proposed to reach a decision on this or other recommendations of the Council until the views of the associations of local authorities and teachers have been received.

Mr. Allaun: Did not the Plowden Report say that primary schools should be used for this purpose, out of school hours, as much as possible? Would not the cost be small compared with the tremendous value to children and working mothers?

Mrs. Williams: My hon. Friend will be aware that under the Education Act, 1944, there are powers to establish play centres. We should like to look at advice in the Plowden Report before taking matters further with legislation.

Sir E. Boyle: May I, first of all, welcome the hon. Lady the Minister of State from this side of the House? I believe that this is the first time that she has answered Questions in her new post. May I ask her how soon the Government expect to make a statement on the recommendations contained in the Plowden Report? Are they aware that we feel that the Government should make time available for a debate on the Report at an early opportunity?

Mrs. Williams: The Government are well aware of the very serious nature of the proposals put forward in the Report and of the urgency of considering these as quickly as possible. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that we want to obtain the advice of the bodies whom we have invited to make representations about the Report.

Professional Sporting Stadia

Mr. Rowland: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will institute an urgent survey of professional sporting stadia liable to go out of use and to recommend a policy for their alternative recreational use.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Denis Howell): The possibility of developing football grounds for wider recreational


uses is among the matters which the Football Inquiry is examining, and the principles governing these will have application to other professional sporting stadia. The regional sports councils are making an appraisal of major sports facilities.

Mr. Rowland: While thanking the Minister for the reference to wider recreational uses, may I ask whether he would not agree that the Brentford-Queen's Park Rangers affair is a portent of things to come, and that if these stadia are likely to be built over, they would represent an insignificant contribution to housing, but a permanent loss of either actual or potential amenity? The Chester Committee looks only at football, not at dog tracks or race courses. Can the Minister give some further assurance?

Mr. Speaker: Order. Questions must be reasonably brief.

Mr. Howell: I have assured the House that the principles applying to professional football grounds will obviously apply to other professional sports grounds. It would be quite wrong to consider these in isolation, one from the other. I do not know much about the Brentford-Queen's-Park Rangers business, except that it shows that the pattern of professional sport which emerged from the last century will obviously have to change to meet new conditions.

Mr. Hogg: Is not one of the troubles that these grounds are far too uncomfortable, with respect to amenities, to suit spectators as they used to?

Mr. Howell: That is very much one of the problems, into which I have asked the Chester Committee to inquire.

Comprehensive System (Teacher Training)

Miss Lestor: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if, in view of the development of the comprehensive system of education, he will review the method of training of teachers for this type of education.

The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Anthony Crosland): Colleges, departments of education, Her Majesty's Inspectors and my Department have already recognised the need both for an adjustment of training courses and the organisation of special courses and

conferences to meet the point which my hon. Friend has in mind.

Miss Lestor: While thanking my right hon. Friend for that reply, may I ask him whether he would not agree that, in view of the change in the pattern of education which the comprehensive system is bringing, plus the raising of the school leaving age shortly, this is a matter of very great urgency?

Mr. Crosland: I think that this is a matter of very great urgency. I doubt whether the main problem is a structural change in the nature of the teacher-training course. The real problem is to find a whole variety of ways—and this is what we are trying to do—of preparing teachers for what is becoming a very new and different teaching function.

Mr. Hornby: Would the right hon. Gentleman in particular consider the needs of headmasters—say, the headmaster of a secondary modern school shortly to become a comprehensive school—who will find themselves managing very different institutions from those which they are managing at the moment?

Mr. Crosland: I entirely agree. The hon. Gentleman will have noted that in answer to a recent Parliamentary Question I said that we were setting up a permanent working group of Her Majesty's inspectors, with, I hope, a regional organisation as well, to keep in mind precisely the point he has raised.

Further Education (Grants)

Mr. Awdry: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he will take steps to standardise the regulations for making grants for further education which at present vary from one county to another.

The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mr. Goronwy Roberts): My right hon. Friend has given guidance to local authorities in Circular 4/66 about the exercise of their statutory discretion in this matter. He does not at present see any need to add to this.

Mr. Awdry: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that even between neighbouring counties there is a very great difference


in the administration of these grants? Dos he appreciate that in some cases this leads to great injustice?

Mr. Roberts: As of now, we do not consider that the cases of disparity of treatment warrant a major change in policy. We have indicated to local authorities that we consider it desirable that there should be consistency of approach in making these discretionary awards. However, at the moment we do not see sufficient evidence to change the policy.

Bristol University (Meat Research Institute)

Mr. Wolrige-Gordon: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what progress is being made in the establishment of the Government Meat Research Institute at Bristol University; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Goronwy Roberts: Construction of the Meat Research Institute started in April, 1965, at Langford, Somerset, on a site adjacent to the Veterinary School of the University of Bristol. The work is proceeding according to plan and is expected to be finished by the end of this year. A phased transfer of research work from the Low Temperature Research Station, Cambridge, will begin in August.

Mr. Wolrige-Gordon: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that when this project was first mooted there was some talk about the desirability of siting a substation for the Institute in Scotland, which produces most of the quality beef in this country, to which I added the desirability of siting it in Aberdeenshire, which produces most of the quality beef in Scotland? What progress has been made towards this end?

Mr. Roberts: No decision about outstations has been made. I am aware of the hon. Member's interest in this matter. But it will not be possible to consider the need for out-stations until the Institute is established and has been functioning for some time.

Mr. Hector Hughes: Would my hon. Friend reconsider the whole problem with a view to having the main research station in Aberdeen, which is the centre of a farming and fishing area, and adding fish research to meat research?

Mr. Roberts: Naturally we shall take fully into account everything that my hon. and learned Friend says.

School Building Programme (Dawley)

Mr. Fowler: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he has included any further projects in the school-building programme for 1967–68, in the light of the representations made to him by Salop County Council and the hon. Member for The Wrekin regarding the probable inadequacy of school facilities in the Dawley New Town area.

Mrs. Shirley Williams: No, Sir. The Shropshire Local Education Authority has been told that further secondary school building at Dawley will be authorised in the 1968–69 programme.

Mr. Fowler: Is my hon. Friend aware that by September, 1969, about 800 Birmingham schoolchildren will have moved into Dawley and that unless the Woodside Infants School and the Woodside Comprehensive School are begun as soon as possible there will be a very severe shortage of school places in Dawley?

Mrs. Williams: If my hon. Friend's predictions are borne out, it will be open to the local authority to ask the Department to allow a start to be made before the beginning of the 1968–69 programme year.

Handicapped Children

Mr. Newens: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on his policy towards the establishment of more special units for handicapped children in normal primary and secondary schools, in view of the need to help handicapped children to grow up adjusted to the wider community in which they have to live.

Mrs. Shirley Williams: Our policy is that handicapped children should be educated in ordinary schools whenever possible, whether by establishing special units or classes or by making other special arrangements.

Mr. Newens: My hon. Friend is well aware of the progress which has been made in educating partially-hearing children alongside normal-hearing children.


Is she satisfied that every encouragement is being given to experiments with other handicapped children?

Mrs. Williams: We are well aware of my hon. Friend's great interest in the problems of handicapped children. It is our impression that there is a constant move towards educating other handicapped children as far as possible in ordinary schools and that there is a constant increase in the number of special classes as well as special units for other handicapped children.

Mr. van Straubenzee: Is the hon. Lady satisfied with the pay structure of those who are teaching mentally handicapped children as against those dealing with physically handicapped children?

Mrs. Williams: I think that it can always be argued that there should be additional staff for mentally-handicapped children, but the general position in the staff ratio for handicapped children has shown an improvement over recent years.

National Advisory Council on the Training and Supply of Teachers

Mr. Newens: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on the future of the National Advisory Council on the Training and Supply of Teachers.

Mr. Crosland: I have more than once invited suggestions for the most appropriate form of consultative machinery. One educational body has made a proposal which I am considering, and I understand that others may reach me shortly. I am now sending a specific invitation to other bodies concerned. I should welcome the widest possible expression of views from educational interests.

Mr. Newens: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply, but may I ask whether he is aware of the very strong feeling which exists among members of teachers' organisations about the need for reconvening the N.A.C.? Will he assure the House that, whatever other changes are made in the character of that body, it will have a representative character?

Mr. Crosland: I am very well aware of the strong feelings on this matter. On the other hand, I think that it is widely agreed that the N.A.C., in its original

form, was too large and too cumbersome and, perhaps, spent too much time on producing rather long reports which came out after Governments had had to take a decision. But I am anxious to try to find the right form of consultative machinery, and that is why I now propose to ask all the bodies concerned for their advice.

Sir E. Boyle: While recognising the force of what the right hon. Gentleman has said about the N.A.C. in its original form, may I ask him whether he will accept that there is a strong feeling, on both sides of the House I believe, that this body should be reconvened in some form in view of the large amount of fresh evidence to the effect that such a body should be considered, especially in the light of the Plowden Report?

Mr. Crosland: I would accept that. I would only say on the other side that it is 1½ years since I first invited suggestions for a more efficient consultative body from the various organisations concerned in view of the admitted imperfections of the old N.A.C., and it is only very recently that I have begun to receive suggestions. Certainly I would not dispute what the right hon. Gentleman said.

Mr. Longden: Is it not a most extraordinary time to be without the benefit of the advice of some such council? Is it necessary to take all this time to reconstitute it?

Mr. Crosland: It is certainly not an extraordinary time, for this reason, that the last report of the N.A.C. was in June, 1965, and since then I am glad to say that the Government, through their teacher-training policies, have very considerably exceeded the targets set in that report. Therefore, no time has been lost in terms of the crux of the matter, which is trying to find more teachers.

Overseas Students (Fees)

Mr. Judd: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what reply he has sent to the representations made to him by distinguished academics, Commonwealth representatives, student bodies and others about his decision to increase fees for overseas students studying in Great Britain.

Mr. Crosland: I explained, as I have done to this House, the reasons which led the Government to take this decision


and the measures which are being taken to cushion the effect in particular groups of case.

Mr. Judd: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is still a great deal of anxiety about the detailed and long-term implications of his decision? Can he assure us that the matter will be clarified in detail at the first possible opportunity?

Mr. Crosland: Yes. I am well aware of the detailed worries as opposed to the basic principle of the decision. I hope that it will not be long before I am able to announce more details of various easements which we have discussed in public.

Mr. Scott: Would the Secretary of State say what representations he has received about refugee students? Would he bear in mind that if all fees are raised it will be necessary for some money to be made available for students in this category?

Mr. Crosland: That is one of a number of very important detailed points which have been put to me. I hope that the short-term easements which I mentioned a week ago today and the long-term review of the situation to which I also referred last week will have these points very much in mind.

Mr. Hogg: As we are receiving by almost every post letters from students who want their individual cases considered by somebody, when will the Minister redeem his promise to me to let us have at least the machinery through which we can move?

Mr. Crosland: I hope very shortly. There is a meeting today between the Departments concerned and the British Council, which is, and should be, heavily involved in this. I hope, therefore, that I shall be able to reply to the right hon. and learned Gentleman's letter and the letters of other hon. Members within a reasonably short space of time.

Mr. Fisher: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he will now seek to establish a special fund to assist unsponsored private students in need to meet the increase in university fees proposed for overseas students.

Mr. Crosland: I have already announced my decision to do so.

Mr. Fisher: Could the right hon. Gentleman indicate how much he estimates will be required for this special fund and how it will be applied in individual cases? Will it be applied on a means test basis, or what? Will unsponsored private students, despite the fund, have to pay anything out of their own pockets if they are in genuine need, or will it all be largely defrayed out of the fund?

Mr. Crosland: The likely amount of the fund is the subject of the next Question, but I do not want to evade the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question. At the moment, I cannot say what the likely amount will be. Referring to the latter part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question, the object of the fund is mainly to help those unsponsored students who might otherwise be in difficulty. As I cannot announce details, for the reasons which I gave earlier, the best thing that I can do is to make it clear that the object of the fund is to ensure that no student in this country currently on a course will have to leave that course and go back to his own country because of the increase in fees.

Mr. Fowler: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is the total estimated cost of the special fund to be established to aid overseas students who will suffer hardship as a result of the decision to increase overseas students' fees.

Mr. Crosland: I cannot add to what I said about the proposed fund in the debate last Thursday.

Mr. Fowler: How can the Secretary of State continue to give bland assurances that the savings from this cut will be £5¼ million if he does not know how much he has spent on this fund—or does he think that the fund will be so small that it will not nullify what he will save by his parsimony in general?

Mr. Crosland: The figure that my hon. Friend has quoted has nothing to do with this fund. The figure that he quoted was the saving which we estimated for a full year. When we are discussing this fund we are discussing students already in this country, and that would relate to savings for 1967–68. So the figure that he quoted was not strictly relevant. But even if we make the most


generous provision for any likely hardship that would result in the case of students already in this country—as I think we shall—I calculate that the greater part of the saving will still be maintained.

Mr. van Straubenzee: Does the right hon. Gentleman's answer mean that there is in the Government's mind no intention to have a fund to meet hardship for future students, and that his idea is that the fund is to relate exclusively to those students who are already here?

Mr. Crosland: The fund which we are now discussing is intended to meet cases of hardship in respect of students who are already here. In connection with students who are not yet here but who may wish to apply and who may be deterred from applying or coming, I repeat the assurances that I gave last Thursday and have given before, that I shall be keeping the long-term question under review with the Minister for Overseas Development, in collaboration with universities and local education authorities, and other persons concerned with the long-term flow of overseas students.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: Can my right hon. Friend give some indication of the nature of the long-term review? Many of us are very perturbed about this aspect of the problem. Is it not right to say that since this is really an overseas aid problem the overseas aid should be increased and this matter should be taken off the Vote of the Department of Education and Science?

Mr. Crosland: I have a great deal of sympathy with what my hon. Friend says on this matter. When I spoke about the long-term review I made it clear that this could not be simply an educational review but must be a review carried out in conjunction with the Ministry for Overseas Development. Beyond that I cannot go at the moment.

Council for Education in World Citizenship

Mr. Judd: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what financial assistance he intends to provide for the Council for Education in World Citizenship during 1967–68.

Mr. Crosland: My Department and the Scottish Education Department will

provide the Council with a grant of £1,080 in 1967–68. The Council approached me last September for an increase in grant. I replied that this would not be possible during the period of immediate economic strain, but I invited the chairman in November to provide me with fuller and more up-to-date financial details. I received these this week, and shall now consider them sympathetically.

Mr. Judd: Would my right hon. Friend agree that in view of the Government's commitment to the United Nations and the fact that this is the only organisation working extensively within secondary education to promote interest in the United Nations, the grant should be significantly increased at the first possible opportunity?

Mr. Crosland: I would not like to commit myself precisely to the last words of my hon. Friend's supplementary question, but I have a great deal of sympathy with what he has in mind. My hon. Friend will know better than anybody that there is a long history to this matter and that for many years the Council did not take all the grant that the Government offered, in consequence of which the grant was cut savagely in 1957. There is, therefore, a rather complicated background to this matter. I repeat, however, that I have great sympathy with the aims of this organisation and now that the chairman has been kind enough to let me have detailed financial considerations, I will examine them very carefully.

Holborn College of Law, Languages and Commerce

Mr. Iremonger: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science why the course in languages and related social studies was allowed to start at the Holborn College of Law, Languages and Commerce on the understanding that it would lead to a Council of National Academic Awards' Honours Bachelor of Arts degree without making sure that the grant of degree status for the course would not be subsequently refused by the Council, as it now has been; and what action he proposes to take about students whose careers are likely to suffer as a result.

Mr. Goronwy Roberts: The course was started before the Council for National


Academic Awards was established and I1 understand from the local education authority that it was not represented as leading to the Council's degree. In February, 1966, application was made to the C.N.A.A. for recognition of the course for a degree; but the Council withheld approval. The college authorities are doing all they can to help students who now wish to transfer to another course.

Mr. Iremonger: Will the hon. Gentleman look at this again? Obviously, the people were misinformed about this and their careers have been irretrievably prejudiced by what has happened. If this is something which has happened once for all and will not happen again because the Council was not set up at the time, cannot the Minister make a special dispensation for the people concerned in this case?

Mr. Roberts: Frankly, I do not think that special action could be taken in a case like this. The course was started in September, 1964, and was announced as one leading to the college diploma, a most valuable qualification. Application was then made to the Council for National Academic Awards, but for various reasons the Council felt unable to approve the course for such a qualification. I do not know how far I could look further into the matter, but I would be ready to discuss it in greater detail with the hon. Member if he would like to do so.

Sutton County Primary School

Sir A. V. Harvey: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science when, in view of the unsatisfactory and overcrowded conditions at Sutton County Primary School, he will consider approving the provision of a new school.

Mrs. Shirley Williams: My right hon. Friend is still considering whether a new school in Sutton can be approved for the 1968–69 building programme.

Sir A. V. Harvey: How long will it take to consider this matter? Is the Minister of State aware that conditions at the school are appalling? A large development is going on in the village. Why cannot we have an answer which would give satisfaction to my constituents?

Mrs. Williams: The hon. Member will be well aware that there are many Mem-

bers of Parliament who feel strongly about building replacements of schools in their areas. He will also be aware that the arrangements for school building programmes are necessarily taken together. Priorities from all the local education authorities involved must be considered and it would be quite improper to take one local authority out of the whole scheme and give an advance decision on one individual case.

Immigrant Children

Miss Lestor: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what definition of immigrant he proposes that education authorities should use in implementing his circular in relation to the 30 per cent. quota system to be applied to immigrant children in schools.

Mr. Denis Howell: I would expect local education authorities to be guided by the children's special educational difficulties arising out of their different cultural and social backgrounds and their inadequate knowledge of English.

Miss Lestor: What precautions are taken to see that children born here of immigrant parents are not included in this quota? Bearing in mind that many of us are critical about this method of dealing with what is essentially a short-term problem, does my hon. Friend feel that sufficient effort has been put into trying to attract into areas which have this difficulty special teachers with qualifications to deal with the problem?

Mr. Howell: A tremendous amount of research and effort is being put in by all the local education authorities affected. As I think the House knows, I am at present in course of visiting and discussing with both the professionals and the local education authorities the problems arising.
In regard to the first part of my hon. Friend's supplementary question, I should not like the House to think that because children are born here they ought not to be part of our consideration of this problem. It is particularly the case with Asians that, even though they may be born here, they still speak no English whatever when they reach school at the age of 5.
25. Mr. John Hall asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science


what is the total number of immigrant children now attending primary and secondary schools in England and Wales; and what estimate he has made of the additional number of school places likely to be required over the next five and 10 years, respectively, to cater for the needs of immigrant children.

Mr. Denis Howell: The latest figure is 131,043 in January, 1966, excluding those in schools with less than 10 immigrant pupils. In estimating the numbers of school places required in future years, we do not assess the needs of immigrant children separately but prospective immigration is one element in making general forward estimates of school population.

Mr. Hall: Is it not a fact that the continuing influx of immigrant children will provide an increasing and difficult problem which is bound to add to the cost of education? Is that not a subject which should be submitted, perhaps, to the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, which is conducting a study for the Chancellor of the Exchequer?

Mr. Howell: I will certainly consider that suggestion.

Mr. Ogden: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that the parents of immigrant children also pay rates and taxes?

Technical Colleges (Textbooks)

Mr. Dodds-Parker: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he will increase the funds allocated for textbooks for the academic departments of technical colleges.

Mr. Goronwy Roberts: The allocation of funds for this purpose is a matter for local education authorities as part of their general responsibility for providing further education.

Mr. Dodds-Parker: Is the Minister aware that an increasing number of students are taking non-technical courses at these technical colleges and that in present circumstances these grants are quite inadequate? Will he see whether his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer could not be a little more generous in this way?

Mr. Roberts: That is a somewhat separate question. Expenditure on text-

books, whether technical or otherwise, is taken into account in assessing the rate support grant to local authorities. I know of no evidence that any particular authority is unable to make adequate allocation from its funds in its own area for this purpose. We are, however, continually watching this, like every other aspect of the disposal of funds.

School Meals

Mr. Fisher: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether, in the light of the recommendations of the Estimates Committee, he has now had an opportunity to consider the reduction or elimination of the £82 million subsidy for school meals, except in cases of genuine financial need.

Mr. Crosland: I am still considering the recommendation of the Estimates Committee.

Mr. Fisher: In considering this matter, will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that the 1s. charge has been in existence for about nine years although during that period family incomes, benefits and also the cost of the meals have risen greatly? If the Minister could save even 6d. a meal this might produce £10 million a year, which could possibly be used to implement some of the recommendations of the Plowden Report.

Mr. Crosland: I shall, of course, bear that in mind, together with other considerations. We have, however, to take into account on the other side that there is still strong evidence of perhaps unexpected remaining malnutrition and poverty, particularly among large families.

Mr. Rhodes: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the school meal is the only decent meal that many children receive each day and that any substantial increase in the charge for these meals would be regarded by many hon. Members on these benches as an attack upon the Welfare State and that it would meet bitter hostility on this side, whatever encouragement my right hon. Friend may get from the benches opposite?

Mr. Crosland: I made it clear in reply to the first supplementary question that a great many considerations are involved in this matter, and I shall, I hope, bear


all of them in mind. Having, however, been asked by the Estimates Committee to make a special review of this problem, I am bound to do so.

Sir E. Boyle: Is it not rather fantastic that the Government should have cut university building, and should be, as many people feel, dragging their feet on the Plowden recommendations, whilst subsidising school meals to the amount of £82 million equally for everybody? While accepting fully the need to safeguard the nutritional standards of large families and those who are least well off, may I ask the Minister to bear in mind the widespread feeling in the country that Government expenditure should be concentrated on those essential tasks which, if they are not performed by the Government, cannot be performed by anybody?

Mr. Crosland: If the right hon. Gentleman feels as strongly as that, it is very curious that he did nothing about this matter for seven years from 1957 to 1964. What this discussion shows is that there are many conflicting considerations in this matter. It really is not a simple one. There are educational and social considerations of an extremely intricate and important kind. I have no intention of coming to any decision on this matter quickly. When the right hon. Gentleman talks about dragging our feet on Plowden, he will have read the Plowden Report —1,200 pages, two volumes. If he really thinks that it would make sense to come to snap decisions on the Committee's 197 recommendations, he is not being serious or responsible.

Mr. Wallace: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, in considering this matter, he may find that savings of a considerable nature must be found in organisation and distribution of the meals service instead of increasing the charge to the parent?

Mr. Crosland: We shall bear that in mind.

Studley College

Mrs. Joyce Butler: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if, in view of the difficulties it will cause to girls wishing to study agriculture, horticulture and farm management, he will reconsider his decision to close Studley

College; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Goronwy Roberts: My right hon. Friend satisfied himself before deciding to discontinue grant to the college that suitable places can be provided at other agricultural establishments for girls who wish to follow the type of courses now offered by Studley.

Mrs. Butler: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the widespread sense of outrage at this decision is partly due to a fear that it will debase the whole status of women in agriculture, particularly since, of all the agricultural establishments offering diploma courses to men or women, Studley is the only one which has successfully trained women for degree courses? Instead of stubbornly sticking to his guns, would my hon. Friend at least have discussions with the college to see if a way out can be found?

Mr. Roberts: There is opposition to any closure, but there is also support for the policy of concentrating scarce resources to the maximum educational advantage. As regards opportunities for women students in agriculture, there are 40 other agricultural education establishments which admit women and offer a wide choice of alternative places. We do not anticipate that there will be any difficulty in placing the women of Studley in alternative courses.

Dame Irene Ward: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that I fully support the case put by the hon. Member for Wood Green (Mrs. Joyce Butler), and is he further aware that I shall be getting out a couple of guns to shoot him if he does not get on with it?

Mr. Roberts: I am aware of the first part of the hon. Lady's supplementary question, but apprehensive of the second part.

Mr. Peter Mills: Will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind that I, too, fully support the hon. Member for Wood Green (Mrs. Joyce Butler), in view of the fact that not only do I have a charming young lady in my constituency who attends this college, but that the Agriculture Bill gives grants to farmers to do this job and this college provides the type of education and secretaries to do this work?

Mr. Roberts: I agree that the college has done extremely well in the past. This raises a question which one must tackle firmly, namely, the concentration of very scarce resources in the way of finance, highly qualified manpower and equipment.

Mr. Rowland: The Minister gave me an almost exactly similar Answer last week on this issue. Is he aware that I have since been informed that, although there may be 40 other colleges, only two offer courses leading to the National Diploma in Dairying, and at those two colleges there are fewer girls than there are at Studley at the moment?

Mr. Roberts: If there are fewer, there is obviously room for women from Studley—

Mr. Rowland: No, places.

Mr. Roberts: On the first point, my information is somewhat different, but I will make it available to my hon. Friend or to any other hon. Member who is interested.

School Books

Mr. Hiley: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will take steps to ensure that there are sufficient books to go round in schools; and what methods he proposes to use to achieve this.

Mrs. Shirley Williams: It is for local education authorities to ensure that there are enough books in the schools and I believe that in general they take this responsibility very seriously.

Mr. Hiley: Is the hon. Lady aware that in Leeds, at any rate, the education committee has not sufficient funds to enable some grammar schools to have the books which they require unless the Department is prepared to spend more money for the purchase of books? Would she consider a suggestion that parents should provide their children with the books which are so indispensable to our education system?

Mrs. Williams: The hon. Gentleman may like to know that the expenditure on books in 1964–65 was over £10 million. There are more books in schools at present than ever before. Arrangements have been made to make loans to local

education authorities, if required. But, fundamentally, this is a matter which rests with local education authorities. The Plowden Report made certain recommendations affecting books, and those recommendations, we feel sure, will be closely paid attention to by local education authorities.

Mr. Charles Morrison: Is the hon. Lady aware that it is extremely difficult for local education authorities to fulfil their responsibilities for books when they have to suffer from an imposed cut in their estimates upon which rate support grant is based?

Mrs. Williams: I can only say that the indications that expenditure on books is steadily going up would not appear to bear that out.

College of Aeronautics, Cranfield

Mr. Hastings: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he will now make a statement about the future of the College of Aeronautics, Cranfield.

Mr. Goronwy Roberts: The governors of the college have recently announced their decision to submit an application to the Privy Council for a charter to establish an institute of technology, at Cranfield, formed from the existing institutions there and with power to award its own degrees.

Mr. Hastings: The governors may have done that, but does the Minister realise that in 1965, in answer to a Question on the subject, we were informed that the recommendations of the governing body had been received by the Government, and still there is no definitive statement of policy with regard to this important institution? Is there not a vital place for Cranfield, and is it not up to the Government to make up their minds and give the college some sense of purpose?

Mr. Roberts: There is certainly a place for Cranfield and the work which it has done and will do. The governors have moved to make this application to the Privy Council. I could not properly comment on that pending the decision of the Council on the application for a charter.

Mr. Hogg: As the Lord President of the Council is responsible for the work of the Privy Council, has the hon. Gentleman inquired of his colleague when a decision can be expected?

Mr. Roberts: I understand that the governors will be submitting their application within the next few weeks. I should not think that a decision by the Council will be delayed. The first move must be the submission of the application for a charter by the Governors.

Irish Department of Education (Certificate for Primary Teachers)

Mr. Arnold Shaw: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he will take steps to grant official recognition of the certificate for primary teachers, issued by the Irish Department of Education.

Mrs. Shirley Williams: No, Sir. My right hon. Friend is unable to accept the courses of training for primary teachers in the Republic of Ireland as suitably matching the courses of teachers training which are approved in England and Wales.

Mr. Shaw: I appreciate the force of my hon. Friend's Answer, but will she give sympathetic consideration if representations are made by local education authorities on behalf of such teachers who have already given satisfactory returns in respect of the teaching they are giving in school at present?

Mrs. Williams: Yes, Sir. It is always open to a local education authority to make a special application to the Department for exceptional treatment on behalf of a certain teacher, and normally the Department would consider the experience and satisfactory services of a teacher over a period of teaching amounting to a number of years.

Mr. Henry Clark: Can the hon. Lady assure us that the same negative attitude that she expressed in reply to an earlier Question will not apply to the Diploma in Education granted by Irish universities, of which there are many holders teaching in this country?

Mrs. Williams: That matter will be considered by those responsible for working out the equation of one degree with another. I must make it clear that it is

in no sense a special picking out of Ireland. For Irish training courses a similar length of time and a similar age of starting would normally be required to equate them with our own teaching staff.

School Books and Equipment (Local Authority Expenditure)

Mr. Goodhart: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what action he proposes to take to obtain an increase in expenditure on school books and equipment made by those local education authorities whose expenditure is well below the national average.

Mrs. Shirley Williams: The Plowden Report made certain recommendations on this subject, and my right hon. Friend is now awaiting the comments of the local authority and teachers' associations.

Mr. Goodhart: Does the Minister recollect that the Plowden Committee suggested that it would cost between £500,000 and £1 million to bring the laggard local education authorities up to an acceptable standard? Does she think that this will happen unless there is the strongest lead from the centre?

Mrs. Williams: As the hon. Member will be aware, the amount spent is within the discretion of local education authorities. The Plowden Report devoted itself to giving greater discretion to individual schools in the matter of expenditure on books. It is not appropriate to take the answer further until we have heard the views of the local education authorities on the Plowden recommendations.

Secondary Education

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what savings he expects to derive in expenditure in the coming financial year from his policy of refusing to sanction improvements in the provision of secondary education in cases which had not complied with his request to submit schemes of reorganisation on comprehensive lines.

Mr. Crosland: In Circular 10/66 I said that I would not approve new secondary projects which would be incompatible with the introduction of a non-selective system of secondary education. This policy is not designed to


secure savings in expenditure but to ensure that in general secondary school building should be in line with Government policy.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Does the right hon. Gentleman's inability to quantify the savings which would result from this step mean that he accepts that this is just bluff?

Mr. Crosland: On the contrary, for precisely the opposite reason the savings to which the right hon. Gentleman refers will turn out to be wholly academic and hypothetical, because virtually no authorities have submitted proposals to us which are incompatible with the comprehensive system.

MINISTERS

Mr. Rippon: asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the dissolution of the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources and the consequent reorganisation of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, he will now make a reduction in the number of Ministers.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): No further changes are in immediate prospect, Sir.

Mr. Rippon: Does the Prime Minister not agree that the number of Ministers in the House of Commons has risen by 30 per cent. since he became Prime Minister? Has he consulted his famous league tables recently? Does he agree that we now have the largest and fastest-growing Government in the world—[An HON. MEMBER: "And the best"]—coupled with the most stagnant economy?

The Prime Minister: The number of Ministers was approved in legislation passed by this House. The right hon. and learned Member will have plenty of time to judge not merely the quantity but the quality, as the country itself did a year ago, because the number of Ministers has not risen since a year ago and the country took its judgment of the quality of the Government then.

Sir S. MacAdden: Will the Prime Minister treat the suggestion of reducing the number of Ministers with reserve? Does not he realise that any such reduction could only add to the pool of his

so-called supporters who would exercise their right to follow their conscience?

The Prime Minister: I shall certainly take the hon. Gentleman's advice very carefully into consideration. He will realise the difficulty that we have in the House as a whole, due to the fact that, conscience or no conscience, we cannot get any agreed policy even out of the Front Bench opposite.

MEMBERS' SPEECHES (NATIONAL LANGUAGES)

Mr. Gwynfor Evans: asked the Prime Minister if he will introduce legislation to enable hon. Members to address this House in any one of the national languages native to the countries of Great Britain.

The Prime Minister: This would be a matter for the House as a whole rather than for me, Sir, and would not require legislation. But I would remind the hon. Member of the wise Ruling which you, Mr. Speaker, gave when the hon. Member raised a similar point with you on 21st July last.—[Vol. 732, c. 879–85.]

Mr. Evans: Will the Prime Minister say clearly whether he regards this State as a national State or a multi-national State? If the latter, how can he reasonably justify denying representatives from constituent nations of these islands the right to address this House in one of the national languages? A yw'n iawn i'r heniaith hon gael ei hesgymuno o'r Ty hwn fel pe bai'n fratiaith ddiwerth?

Mr. Speaker: Order. I was afraid that was coming.

The Prime Minister: I am not sure—

Mr. Evans: On a point of order. Is it your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, that no one may address this House in any language but English, and, therefore, that the Welsh language must always be regarded in this House—although it is an ancient British tongue—as a foreign language?

The Prime Minister: In answer to the original supplementary question, the first sentence of it did not convey much more to me than the third. As for the second, it is not for me to express a view on the conduct of our Parliamentary business; it is a matter for the House. As the hon.


Member will recognise, in whatever language the House agrees that he or any other hon. Member should address it, he will be sure to get the attention and respect of the House to the extent that the words he uses, in any language, convey deep common sense and a realistic policy.

Mr. Heath: The Commonwealth Secretary, when Leader of the House, said that he would consider sympathetically and possibly refer to a Select Committee the question of taking the Oath in another language. Will the Prime Minister say what has happened about that?

The Prime Minister: This is a separate question, because the Question referred to the right of hon. Members generally to address this House, not merely to take the Oath. All these matters, of course, are for the House. I would certainly consider it perfectly suitable for the Select Committee to consider the question of the Oath or any other question raised by the hon. Gentleman's Question.

Mr. Ogden: Does my right hon. Friend appreciate that some of the English Members of the House would welcome the opportunity of using plain, unadorned English, particularly that form of old Anglo-Saxon used west of the Pennines and north of the Mersey?

Mr. Heath: The Leader of the House said that to change the Oath so that we could take it in another language would require a change of legislation, which is perfectly true, and undertook to take action about it. I am asking the Prime Minister whether the Leader of the House has taken any action.

The Prime Minister: I will look into the question of whether any action has been taken, but there is no reason why the Select Committee should not take this matter up as a matter of urgency, at once if it feels that that is necessary.

Sir W. Bromley-Davenport: Could I ask the right hon. Gentleman please to resist proposals of this nature? Is he aware that we on these benches already find it difficult enough to understand the nonsensical speeches which come in a steady flow from the Government Front Bench? [Laughter.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. This is a serious matter.

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir, any intervention by the hon. and gallant Member for Knutsford (Sir W. Bromley-Davenport) always gets the very serious consideration which his weighty interventions command. However, just as it is not a matter for me to take action in this matter, as I said in answer to the original Question, equally it is not for me to resist proposals of this nature. This must be a matter for the House as a whole, including the hon. and gallant Gentleman.

CHEQUERS (SECURITY ARRANGEMENTS)

Mr. John Hall: asked the Prime Minister if there has been any change in the security arrangements at Chequers since he informed the House about those arrangements in his answers to Questions on 2nd December, 1964.

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir, but it would be contrary to practice to give details.

Mr. Hall: Does the right hon. Gentleman not recollect that he gave details in answer to questions raised by hon. Members on 2nd December? Further, is he not aware that, on two occasions in the last six months, there have been cases of breaking and entering into Chequers, the last of which came to notice only because the people concerned were caught? Would he not also agree that this evidence of the weakness of security in Chequers is giving considerable anxiety about his personal safety to his hon. Friends below the Gangway? Should he not do something about it?

The Prime Minister: I do not think that I should comment on the circumstances in which certain events became known, but as all matters relating to the break-in are at present sub judice—I should have thought that his own remark would come within that recognition—it would be inappropriate for me to comment on anything to do with the break-in to which he referred. It is true, as he says, that I gave an Answer on the first part of his Question on 2nd December, 1964, when Questions about special security arrangements were asked at the time of our defence conference at Chequers in November, 1964. I gave one detail, that the normal security protection


is given by the Buckinghamshire police. That is not giving too much away, but it would be contrary to practice to say what the situation has been since then.

Mr. Hogg: Was a D notice issued in respect of the loss of the Constable?

The Prime Minister: The right hon. and learned Gentleman will be aware that the last D notice issued was issued not by this Government but by the Government of which he was a member, in June, 1964.

Mr. Lipton: Can my right hon. Friend explain why there was such a long time lag between the date of the last illegal entry into Chequers and the release of the news that an illegal entry had taken place?

The Prime Minister: When events of this kind occur, it must be a matter for the police to decide how to handle these questions. They were pursuing inquiries which led to certain action, on the consequences of which, being sub judice, I cannot comment.

BRITISH EMBASSY, ROME

Mr. Walters: asked the Prime Minister if he will co-ordinate the actions of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and the Minister of Public Building and Works with regard to fixing a date for starting the building of the new British Embassy in Rome.

The Prime Minister: Those of my right hon. Friends concerned already work closely together and no special action by me is needed.

Mr. Walters: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that that is a very disappointing Reply, that the site of the Embassy in Rome has now stood there for nearly 20 years, that enormous care was taken to prepare a building which was exciting architecturally, on which Sir Basil Spence worked, and interesting to the Italian municipal authorities, and that something more positive is expected rather more quickly than what he has said?

The Prime Minister: I agree very much with the hon. Gentleman's tribute to the work undertaken by Sir Basil Spence, who was commissioned to undertake the project several years ago—indeed,

in November, 1960. I can take no responsibility for the greater part of the 20 years. With regard to action now, although it is too soon to forecast a date on which building work will begin, provision of £100,000 has been sought in the Estimates for 1967–68 for this project.

Mr. Rippon: Will the right hon. Gentleman agree that all the preparations for the commencement of this work and its completion were ready in October, 1964 and would have been carried out, and that a major architectural work, of this kind, by a world-famous architect on one of the most historic sites in Europe ought to go ahead as quickly as possible?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir, I recognise that the necessary preparations, architect's drawings and the rest, were done by 1964—in other words, after 17½ of the 20 years mentioned by the right hon. and learned Gentleman's hon. Friend. I also note that the right hon. Gentlemen opposite spend half their time saying that Government expenditure must be cut down and the other half pressing for an expansion in expenditure on every single item which comes to their notice.

NUCLEAR TESTS

Mr. Alison: asked the Prime Minister what discussions he held with Mr. Kosygin about extending the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty to include underground tests.

The Prime Minister: We agreed on the importance of extending the 1963 Treaty to cover tests in all environments. The Soviet Prime Minister was asked to reconsider the possibility of holding the tripartite technical talks on seismology to which my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary referred on 19th December.—[Vol. 738, c. 999–1001.]

Mr. Alison: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree or disagree that it is a little hypocritical to expect non-nuclear Powers to sign a self-denying ordinance such as the non-proliferation agreement while nuclear Powers—perhaps particularly his Government—keep open the underground testing option? Does he propose any further British underground tests?

The Prime Minister: I certainly do not accept what the hon. Gentleman says. We have been pressing all along for an


extension of the limited test ban to underground tests. There is nothing hypocritical about that. The fact that we have not reached agreement on it raises other considerations. Nor do I believe that it is hypocritical to press for a non-proliferation agreement when we failed so far to get agreement on this. I would agree, however—this may be in the hon. Gentleman's mind—that a concomitant of asking for a non-proliferation agreement to be signed by non-nuclear Powers is that the nuclear Powers should make as rapid an advance as posible to nuclear disarmament.

Mr. Alfred Morris: Did my right hon. Friend have any discussions with Mr. Kosygin about the possibility of an Anglo-Soviet attempt to persuade General de Gaulle to sign the partial Test Ban Treaty, especially in view of the views of the Leader of the Opposition about nuclear sharing with France?

The Prime Minister: We did not discuss either the position of General de Gaulle or that of the Leader of the Opposition in these talks. The important difference here is, of course, the fact that the Soviet Government believe—I think they strongly believe—that modern seismological research enables outside observers, without on-the-spot inspection, to detect any underground explosion which has possible sinister meaning. We do not accept that that is yet the position, although there has been great progress year by year over the past few years. This is why we have impressed on them the need for talks between the seismological experts to see how narrow is the difference. My view is that it is a fairly narrow difference; around a particular seismic magnitude, but it would be helpful if we could get a meeting of the experts, away from the foreign affairs discussions on this.

Mr. Hogg: Would the right hon. Gentleman not agree, however, that the time factor here is of some importance? Having regard to the fact that plutonium is the inevitable by-product of all uranium reactors in operation and that, by the mid-1970s, uranium reactors will be reacting all over the world, does he not realise that the quantity of plutonium available to Powers on all sides will be very large in ten years? Does that not make the matter urgent?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir, I agree with what the right hon. and learned Gentleman has said. It is urgent, and it is as serious as he said. This, of course, is why we are pressing on so strongly for a non-proliferation agreement to stop the spread of nuclear weapons to non-nuclear Powers. That, I think, is a separate question from this one, which related to underground tests.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Does my right hon. Friend recollect that at the time of the signing of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in Moscow in 1963 the then Conservative Prime Minister said that we must not only co-exist with the Russians but co-operate with them? Does my right hon. Friend agree with that and would he say how that squares with the fact that this week we are talking about having nuclear weapons—to be used, presumably, against the Russians in the 1970s and 1980s?

The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend will, if he is interested in cooperation with the Russians, no doubt want to go back into the Library and study the very fine statement agreed upon between Mr. Kosygin and myself covering a very, very wide range of cooperation between our two countries—indeed, I think on a level not previously reached. The co-operation which is relevant here and which we ourselves are proposing—and about which the Russians have difficulty—is that tripartite talks on seismology should take place so that the scientists can first of all clear out of the way any arguments about outside detection and in that way narrow the gap as to what that argument is; and then, at that stage, the Foreign Ministers can take over. We would like to see that technological co-operation as a first step.

Mr. Lubbock: Does the Prime Minister recall that at the time of the partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty the West was asking the East to accept six to eight seismic events per annum to see whether they might be of nuclear origin? In view of the improvements which have taken place in seismic techniques since that time, have we made any offer to the Soviet Government of a reduction in the number of inspections which would be required, and would the right hon. Gentleman consider publishing a White Paper giving the details of the scientific


advances which have been made in the interim?

The Prime Minister: There has been no recent discussion about the number of tests and we are really still in the same position as we were more than three years ago on this matter in that the Soviet Government say that no inspections are necessary, and that they will not contemplate them, although the West is saying that some means of on-the-spot inspection is needed. As long as that difference exists, it is no good arguing about numbers. I agree that there has been a great advance in detection techniques, though not enough, in our view, to justify our taking the risk of saying that this can all be detected from outside. Since the Soviet Government have disagreed with us about this, that is why we say that there is need for the seismologists to get together. I will look into the question of the need for a White Paper, although I am not sure that one would be appropriate at present. The argument on seismology is a rather narrow one.

Mr. Maxwell: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that while the non-proliferation treaty is important, our present attitude in assisting the Russians and Americans to control Europe is proving most unhelpful in our exploration to enter the Common Market?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. I do not agree with at all with that and I would not agree with any phrase about our assisting the Russians and the United States to control Europe. The non-proliferation treaty is of great urgency. I have several times told the House that there are anxieties among some of our European partners—and these anxieties exist more widely—about the effect of the treaty on their civil technology, something which we believe is not a danger to them, and we have positive proposals for helping in nuclear matters, such as joining EURATOM on suitable terms.

ARMY FIRING RANGE, LULWORTH (BOYS' DEATHS)

Mr. Evelyn King: (by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for Defence whether he is aware that the bodies of two

boys, Peter Sale sand Lester Noyes, of Stoborough, near Wareham, were found on the Army firing range at Lulworth yesterday; if he can give any account of the incident; and if he will make a statement.

The Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Army (Mr. James Boyden): About 11.30 on Tuesday evening the police reported to the Lulworth Gunnery School that two boys were missing and were believed to have wandered on to the ranges. No search was possible that night, but yesterday morning, after a search in which troops and police took part, the bodies of two boys aged about 14 were found on the Heath Range. No firing had taken place on the Heath range after 1.30 p.m. on Tuesday, but there was firing on another part of Lulworth Ranges between 6 p.m. and 8.30 p.m.
There is a fence or thick hedge around the range, warning notices to the public are placed at intervals along it, and red flags are flown. I understand that an explosion caused this tragic accident, into which the Army will hold a full inquiry after the coroner's inquest. The police are already carrying out a preliminary inquiry with the Army's help.
I wish to express my deepest sympathy with the parents of the two boys.

Mr. King: I join with the hon. Gentleman in expressing deep sympathy to the parents in the sorrow they endure.
I have two further points to put to the Minister. First, will the results of this inquiry be made public? Secondly, there is a good deal of local anxiety. Is it not a fact that red flags are flown while firing takes place, but that there remains the possibility of unexploded shells remaining after the flags have been lowered?

Mr. Boyden: The results of the inquiry will be made known.
It would be improper for me to answer the second part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question since if there is to be any allocation of blame that should be left to the inquiry. It might cause more distress if premature blame were cast.

QUESTION TO MINISTER

Mr. Tilney: On a point of order. Since only last weekend the Secretary of State for Education and Science decided to discriminate against colleges which are maintained by religious bodies, should he not now ask for leave to answer Question No. 43?

Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order. The Minister could have asked for leave to answer that Question, but he has not done so.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Heath: May I ask the Leader of the House to state the business of the House for next week?

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Richard Crossman): Yes, Sir. The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY, 6TH MARCH—In the morning—
Double Taxation Relief Orders relating to Canada, Trinidad and Tobago and Singapore, and the Central Banks (Income Tax Schedule C Exemption) Order.
In the afternoon—
Supply [12th allotted day]: Army Estimates, 1967–68, Vote A.
TUESDAY, 7TH MARCH—Second Reading of the Leasehold Reform Bill.
WEDNESDAY, 8TH MARCH—In the morning—
Fishing Vessels (Acquisition and Improvement) (Grants) Scheme, and the Isle of Wight and Portsmouth (Solent Forts) Order.
In the afternoon—
Remaining stages of the Housing Subsidies Bill.
THURSDAY, 9TH MARCH—Second Reading of the Shipbuilding Industry Bill.
FRIDAY, 10TH MARCH—Private Members' Motions.
MONDAY, 13TH MARCH—In the morning the proposed business is:
Remaining stages of the Teachers' Superannuation Bill [Lords], which is a consolidation Measure.
Parking Places (Transfer of Functions) Order and the Police Pensions (Amendment) Regulations.
In the afternoon—
Private Members' Motions until 7 o'clock.
Afterwards, opposed Private Business.

Mr. Heath: The Leader of the House will recall that last Thursday we had a discussion across the Table about the need for a debate on decimalisation before the Government introduced legislation. The right hon. Gentleman recognised the importance of this subject for the House as a whole and, when we offered to provide half a day if the Government would do the same, I understood him to accept our offer, although he did not wish to commit himself to take the Whips off.
The right hon. Gentleman said that he would discuss the timing through the usual channels. The Government have now published their Bill without having had that discussion through the usual channels about the holding of a debate. [HON. MEMBERS: "Shame."] Is not this a rather discourteous way of proceeding and will not the right hon. Gentleman still take this matter seriously? May we have a debate before the Second Reading of the Bill so that the Government can take the view of the House into account?

Mr. Crossman: I appreciate the anxiety of the right hon. Gentleman about this subject and would like to explain to him what has happened. I said that I would discuss the matter through the usual channels to see whether it would be possible to fit in a first debate on the White Paper before the House came to the Second Reading debate of the Bill. We will be holding that Second Reading debate before Easter and I just did not see how it would be possible for us to have two debates on decimal currency—to have one now and another in 10 days' time. So we decided to have a full debate on Second Reading before the Easter Recess.

Mr. Heath: Does not the right hon. Gentleman realise that there is real concern on the part of all hon. Members over this matter, that this concern is not limited to one side, and that we wished to have a debate before the Bill was introduced so that the Government could take the


view of the House as a whole into account? In view of all the indications, in the Press and elsewhere, of a very hard movement of public opinion away from the Government's proposals in this matter, and over to the alternative, ought not the Government still to have a debate of this issue before we debate the Bill so that they have a chance to change their policy?

Mr. Crossman: I made it perfectly clear when we were discussing business last week. The words I used were:
The Government's decision has been already announced, and I can now say that legislation is expected in the not too far distant future."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd February, 1967; Vol. 741, c. 1963.]
The only thing the House has to decide, therefore, is whether we are to have two debates, one on the White Paper, and then, a week later, another on the Second Reading of the Bill. I should have thought, in view of the pressure of business, that one day's debate on the issue, now that the Government's decision has been announced and we have made up our minds, is enough.

Mr. Mapp: In view of the disastrous flow of imported cotton textiles into this country—indeed, in January of this year the Portuguese flow was ten times as large as the whole of that flow in 1965 and four times as large as the whole of the flow in 1966—may I press my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to provide time for a debate on the cotton textile industry in the near future?

Mr. Crossman: I thank my hon. Friend for giving me notice that he intended to put that to me. I appreciate that hon. Members from Lancashire, particularly, are deeply concerned about this. I think that we must try if we can to find time, but we cannot possibly do it before the Easter Recess.

Mr. Lubbock: Does the Leader of the House recall that as long ago as 8th December he told me, in answer to a question about a debate on decimal currency, that he could not find time for it before Christmas and was unlikely to find time for it in the first week after the reassembly? Did not that imply that the Government were prepared to find time for a debate on decimal currency before the introduction of the Bill? Has the

right hon. Gentleman noted Motion No. 319, signed by nearly 50 Members on both sides of the House and calling for a free vote on this issue?

[That this House welcomes the statement of Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer in Command Paper No. 3164 that the decision of Her Majesty's Government to retain the £ system in a decimal currency is subject to the final approval of Parliament, and trusts that such Parliamentary approval will be sought by a free vote of the House of Commons.]

Mr. Crossman: I have noticed that Motion. It was made clear in the White Paper that the Government had made a decision of policy. I explained once again to the House last week that this decision had been made and that legislation was coming soon. The legislation has come. The Second Reading will come before the Easter Recess.

Mr. Gardner: Has my right hon. Friend yet given consideration to the request of my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Fowler) for a debate on the failure of the Opposition to apply for a New Writ for Brierley Hill?

Mr. Crossman: I regard it as most useful that on one day a week the Opposition should be reminded of their nervousness on this subject.

Mr. G. Campbell: Is the Leader of the House aware that the White Paper on Decimal Currency also said that the Government's decision on the system was subject to Parliamentary approval? As this is not a party matter, but will affect very closely every member of the general public, will the right hon. Gentleman allow a free vote at least on Clause 1 of the Bill, which governs this question?

Mr. Crossman: Of course the White Paper makes it clear that this matter is subject to Parliamentary approval. Everything is so subject, including the Second Reading of a Bill. The way in which each of us advises our members is best left to each other.

Mrs. Anne Kerr: Has my right hon. Friend had his attention drawn during the last few days to Motion No. 415 on defence of peace in the minds of men? Will he try to find time during the next few weeks for a debate on this subject?

[That this House, noting that 20 years have now elapsed since the foundation of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation and noting the increased nationalism and rising tensions throughout the world which have occurred in the absence of any significant action by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation to encourage a sense of world community, calls upon Her Majesty's Government to propose at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation a programme to encourage a dual perspective in education, world as well as national, so that opportunity is given in the curriculum for balancing national loyalty with a measure of conscious loyalty to the human race as a whole in all its diversity.]

Mr. Crossman: I appreciate the strength of feeling among my hon. Friends on this subject. I have again consulted my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary. We are very sympathetic, but I remind my hon. Friends that I cannot see any possibility of providing Government time for such a debate up to the Easter Recess.

Mr. Farr: As the debate on the Navy Estimates was, for some reason or other, not concluded last night, will the right hon. Gentleman say whether the date when the Vote is to be taken is to be generally promulgated and whether hon. Members will have a chance of continuing the debate before the Vote is taken?

Mr. Crossman: The discussion concluded last night, but the Vote can be taken next week with the other Votes. If there is any anxiety amongst hon. Members opposite, I give them the assurance that on the other two Estimates the Votes will be taken in the normal way.

Mr. Wellbeloved: Will my right hon. Friend give serious consideration to taking the Whips off for the Second Reading of the Decimal Currency Bill? Will my right hon. Friend note that there are Members behind him who want to exercise their consciences with a clear conscience?

Mr. Crossman: I will take that fully into account.

Mr. Bryan: It is now some weeks since the Leader of the House promised us a

debate on the White Paper on Broadcasting. When is this debate due?

Mr. Crossman: I think that the hon. Gentleman forgets what actually happened. I said that we would discuss the Bill and would not, therefore, because the Opposition requested it, take the debate on the White Paper at the same time. I said that that debate would be postponed. I gave no kind of promise that it would be before Easter.

Mr. Moyle: Has the Leader of the House had time to consider now whether he can provide time for a debate on the Bill dealing with the registration and control of unlicensed clubs, since they are often used as channels for pushing drugs and their policing under the present laws is extremely difficult and wasteful of police manpower?

Mr. Crossman: I suggest that we should wait and see. I gather that the hon. Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Miscampbell) has a Ten-Minute Rule Motion down for Monday relating to an almost identical Bill to that in which my hon. Friend is interested. We should wait to see how that Bill fares and then look at the question again.

Mr. Sandys: May I draw the right hon. Gentleman's attention to a Motion, tabled today, entitled, "Pledge to South Arabia"? In view of the disreputable attempts made by the Foreign Secretary and the Secretary of State for Defence during the last few days to wriggle out of a clear pledge given to South Arabia, will the Leader of the House ask the Prime Minister to correct these serious misstatements at the earliest opportunity?

Mr. Crossman: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his courtesy in sending me the text of the Motion. I totally refute what he implied to my right hon. Friends and suggest that they will deal with him in the usual way when they have seen the notice.

Mr. Winnick: Can my right hon. Friend tell us whether there can be a debate on the Select Committee's recommendation on Standing Order No. 9?

Mr. Crossman: Yes. I am hoping that there will be a debate soon after the Easter Recess.

Mr. Clegg: Would the Leader of the House find time to discuss the problems of those areas, such as my own constituency, outside the development areas, which have an unemployment rate of 8·3 per cent.?

Mr. Crossman: The suggestion has been made from various quarters that we should discuss the problem of unemployment. That we certainly will bear in mind. I doubt whether we could have a specific debate devoted to the hon. Gentleman's constituency.

Mr. Crawshaw: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there are many Members on this side who are genuinely concerned about the merits or otherwise of the decimal currency proposal? Would he bear in mind that there are still a few of us on this side below the Gangway who would like to support a three-line Whip if possible?

Mr. Crossman: I expect that my right hon. Friend the Patronage Secretary was listening to what my hon. Friend said. I will discuss this. I hope that my hon. Friend will catch the eye of the Chair on the Second Reading of the Bill so that he can express his views in the normal way.

Mr. Kershaw: Will the right hon. Gentleman provide an opportunity very soon for a further discussion about Aden? Will he ensure that it is in Government time, because the Government are widely blamed for what is going on there?

Mr. Crossman: I can give no kind of assurance about a debate. I think that there has been a fairly full investigation at Question Time. I can give an assurance that in the event of important happenings my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, as always, would make a statement.

Mr. Ashley: Is my right hon. Friend aware that he has a duty to relieve the anxiety of hon. Members opposite about the problem of unemployment? Will he find time to debate the impending unemployment of the Leader of the Opposition?

Mr. Maudling: As there is considerable concern in the House about the situation in Malta, may I ask the Leader of the House whether we may expect a statement next week?

Mr. Crossman: I do not think that a statement is intended now, but I know that the negotiations have started. I assure the right hon. Gentleman that the moment we have reached a proper stage there will be a statement on how they are going.

Mr. Thornton: May I press my right hon. Friend to find time for a debate before Easter on the textile industry? The situation in Lancashire is giving rise to great concern. It may well be that through the usual channels the Opposition would be prepared to co-operate in finding time for a debate.

Mr. Crossman: I appreciate the way in which my hon. Friend has put his question to me, and I appreciate, also, the need or desire for a debate; but up to Easter—I have been looking at our plans—the time of the House is quite unusually booked, and inevitably so up to that time. If the Opposition were to consider that this was something they wanted to do in their time, we could consider it through the usual channels.

Sir J. Eden: I follow my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Kershaw) in pressing the right hon. Gentleman for an early debate on Aden and South Arabia. As the Prime Minister knows very well, the Egyptians are using gas in the Yemen. Ought not the House to be given an early opportunity to press the Government to lay the whole matter before the United Nations?

Mr. Crossman: I can only repeat that there is no prospect of a debate next week or the week after.

Mr. Whitaker: Will my right hon. Friend give definite news of action on the Brambell and Littlewood Reports, on which his predecessor promised a debate many months ago?

Mr. Crossman: I can give the news that the necessary legislation is now being thought of and carefully prepared for dealing with part of the Brambell Report.

Mr. Gwynfor Evans: Will the right hon. Gentleman look at Motion No. 444, on the use of the Welsh language in the courts, and find time to discuss this matter in view of the intolerable situation which has developed in Wales, where people are being imprisoned because of their


insistence upon using the Welsh language in public, official and legal affairs?

[That this House deplores certain obiter dicta by the Lord Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Widgery in the Divisional Court of the High Court of Justice in the case of the Queen v. the Justices of the Borough of Merthyr Tydfil ex parte Jenkins which have spread the erroneous belief among magistrates in Wales that it is for the court and not the party or witness to decide whether or not he may use the Welsh language and that Welsh may not be used in courts in Wales save when the court considers the witness or party to be under a disadvantage; and calls the attention of the magistrates and the courts to the provisions of Section 1 of the Welsh Courts Act, 1942, which gives the power of deciding which language he may use to the party or witness.]

Mr. Crossman: We all appreciate the hon. Gentleman's pertinacity. He will realise that the Government have announced their acceptance of the principle of equality for the Welsh language and that the appropriate measures will be taken at the earliest practicable date.

Mr. McNamara: Will my right hon. Friend say when we can expect a discussion on the Report of the Pearson Inquiry concerning the shipping industry, which has just been issued? May we expect it before or after Easter, and shall we have an opportunity to debate the Report before legislation is introduced?

Mr. Crossman: We have to allow time to digest this extremely important Report. I would not like to commit myself until I have studied it and I can tell how urgent it is.

Sir Alec Douglas-Home: Will the right hon. Gentleman reconsider his answers on Aden? Every day, as he knows, there are incidents and it looks as though these incidents are likely to go on. As far as we are aware, the Government's programme for withdrawing troops is going at the same rate as has always been laid down. The situation causes us great anxiety, apart from the more general matters mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys). Will the Leader of the House consider a debate before Easter?

Mr. Crossman: My answers are not by any means as absolute as they normally are in refusing a debate, because I appreciate that this is a matter of great importance and that things are changing a great deal. I shall talk to the Foreign Secretary about it and see what he thinks.

Mr. Cant: As one of the loyal supporters of the Government, may I ask the Leader of the House whether he is aware that, if a free vote were taken on decimalisation, 90 per cent. of Members would vote for a 10s. unit—

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

Mr. Speaker: Order. We cannot debate the decimal currency question. The hon. Gentleman must put a business question.

Mr. Cant: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker. I was giving the background to my feeling on the subject, with a view to asking my right hon. Friend whether we could have an open debate on this matter which, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be legislating for 1,000 years, is one of great importance to the country.

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

Mr. Crossman: Of course, I appreciate the importance of the matter. Every debate is open. It is also a fact that the Government have declared their policy on this matter—[HON. MEMBERS: Why?"] The Government have declared their policy on the matter—[HON. MEMBERS: "Wrong."]—and they propose—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. Many hon. Members wish to ask business questions. Noise does not help.

Mr. Frederic Harris: On Monday, I have the second Private Member's Motion, on the vital subject of the burden on ratepayers. May I have the right hon. Gentleman's assurance that the Government will not deliberately extend the debate before me so that I do not have an opportunity to be called?

Mr. Crossman: An assurance about what happens in private Member's time is beyond the capacity of the Leader of the House.

Mr. Fowler: Can my right hon. Friend soon find time for a debate on Vietnam,


in view of the changed situation in the House, signalised by the proposal from the Opposition Front Bench yesterday that British ships should operate in Vietnamese waters?

Mr. Crossman: I agree that that is a factor to take into account, but there is no time before Easter, as far as I can see, without a major reorganisation of Government business, for that topic to be debated.

Sir T. Brinton: May I press the Leader of the House for a debate on the decimal currency? [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] It seems that this has the over-whelming support of the House. The Government have decided their policy in advance. Do they not want to know what we think?

Mr. Crossman: It seems that there is considerable misunderstanding, either genuine or synthetic. The Government are anxious to find the will of the House. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] This is why they propose a Bill on decimalisation, on which the House can make up its mind.

Mr. Philip Noel-Baker: Can my right hon. Friend give us a valid reason why there should not be a free vote on the currency matter before the Bill is introduced and the Government have committed themselves to a given policy?

Mr. Crossman: There is a simple reason, namely, that the Government have stated their policy already—[HON. MEMBERS: "It is wrong."]—and have decided to put a Bill before the House. It will be up to the House to decide what to do with it.

Mr. Heath: On this question of decimalisation, the Leader of the House is being disingenuous to a degree never before encountered even in himself. Last week, he gave a specific undertaking that he would discuss through the usual channels the timing of a debate. He has not done that. The Government have now got themselves into an intolerable situation in relation to the House. The right hon. Gentleman must realise the depth of feeling in the House in all quarters on this matter. Will he not face up to it and agree that there should be a debate before the Bill? The Government could then act on the view of the

House and get themselves out of the jam into which they have put themselves.

Mr. Crossman: The right hon. Gentleman asks to have two days devoted to this question—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Yes—two days devoted to decimalisation, one on the White Paper and one on the Bill. We prefer to have one day on the Bill.

Mr. Bob Brown: Will the Leader of the House accept that many genuine supporters of the Government take a very dim view of his reference to synthetic outrage? Many of us feel that we should have been consulted about decimalisation. Will he give an opportunity?

Mr. Crossman: The question whether hon. Members consult or do not consult is not related to the business for next week.

Mr. Biffen: Why is the Leader of the House so obdurate on the question of a decimal currency? Does he not agree that this is a matter of great significance and that, if the Government wish to see the House of Commons restored with some prestige, it is one which the House should debate? The fact that we may occupy two days is merely an acknowledgment of the importance which the issue has for the country and our successors.

Mr. Crossman: The hon. Gentleman will apreciate that his point about giving two days would put an enormous burden on Government business—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—if, on every occasion, a Government first submitted to a debate on the White Paper and then on the Second Reading of a Bill. We have decided that on this issue two such debates in 10 days would be too much.

Mr. Heath: May I make an offer to the Leader of the House, to assist him? If he is prepared to have a debate on the principle, on which the House can have a free vote and express its view, we for our part would then allow the consequent Bill, in accordance with the wishes of the House, to go forward formally.

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

Mr. Crossman: The right hon. Gentleman seems to forget how the House of Commons conducts its business. He may tell us that he is prepared to let the


Decimal Currency Bill go through without discussion, but he has no power to bind every Member of the House. It is obvious that, if there is to be a Second Reading, there will be a Second Reading debate. I am astounded that the right hon. Gentleman makes his proposal.

Mr. E. L. Mallalieu: My right hon. Friend will appreciate the importance that attaches to Motion 415. Can he say whether he will do his best to see that we have a debate on that Motion after Easter?

Mr. Crossman: As I told my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Chatham (Mrs. Anne Kerr), who first asked about this Motion, I discussed it with the Foreign Secretary, but it is unlikely that we shall be able to devote a whole day to this subject when there are so many aspects of foreign affairs, including the Middle East, that we need to discuss.

Mr. Hirst: When will the Leader of the House realise that his courtesy to the House is becoming increasingly less obvious when he brushes aside serious undertakings such as the undertaking he gave last week, and that it is impossible to imagine that he can command respect of the House if he, in turn, will not show respect for the overwhelming wish of the House?

Mr. Crossman: I think that if the hon. Member reflects he will find that those accusations are unjust. Last week I discussed at this Box with the Opposition the possibility, which they then put, of an initial debate on decimal currency before Second Reading, but I then warned that the Government had already declared their policy, and I concluded my second statement by saying that we had a programme to get through but that this matter would be discussed through the usual channels.
I am told by the Opposition that this discussion has in no way taken place and I will check that, because I will be concerned about that matter. Apart from that, I do not think it fair, if I may say so, to say that I have been discourteous to the House in any way.

Mr. Tuck: How can my right hon. Friend say that he wants to test the opinion of the House if there is not to be a free vote?

Hon. Members: Answer.

Mr. Crossman: Certainly, I will answer. It would be a strange piece of constitutional theory to say that there could not be any test of opinion in the House of Commons unless there was nothing but a free vote. We could not get very far with getting our business through in that way.

Mr. Peyton: How can the right hon. Gentleman sustain the view that he is interested in the opinion of the House of Commons when he rejects the perfectly reasonable offer made by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition?

Mr. Crossman: I have always believed that the right hon. Gentleman means the questions he asks, so I answer them in the same spirit. The answer here is that the House of Commons constantly concerns itself with Bills where we test the opinion of the House and then give advice to Members. This is a perfectly normal way of conducting Parliamentary debate. It is no good saying that we do not debate freely, when we advise ourselves in the normal way.

Mr. Ginsburg: As there was a debate on the principle of decimal currency in another place, will my right hon. Friend give serious thought to his present view, and also consider the point of view of our constituents in this matter?

Mr. Crossman: We will consider the point of view of constituents in this matter, but decimal currency has been discussed for a long time—[HON. MEMBERS: "Not here."]—and it will be discussed here in 10 days' time.

Mr. Hastings: The right hon. Gentleman is said to be jealous of his reputation as a reformer in Parliament, and is on record as saying that he wants this place to be effective. That being so, is not this a critical moment for him? Why cannot he sense the feeling of the House, and take an opinion on decimal coinage without more ado?

Mr. Crossman: Because, as Leader of the House, I have more than one obligation. I have the obligation to the House, which I seek to honour, to look after the rights of back benchers. I also have a responsibility to the House as a whole and to the Government with regard to


business. There is a lot of business before Easter. The almost unprecedented suggestion made to me was that, on a Bill of this kind, we should have two days of debate—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—two whole days' debate; one on the White Paper—[Interruption.] I do not get shouted down. It has been proposed to me that we should have one day's debate on the White Paper—[Interrutpion.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. Opinion can be expressed and pressure can be put on Ministers without foolish noise.

Mr. Crossman: I do not want to be guilty of otiose repetition, so let me be precise. The proposal is made to me that in addition to the debate on the Second Reading, which will take place before the Easter Recess, there should be another debate on the same subject. That means taking two days on the subject and, frankly, I think that that is more than the subject deserves.

Mr. Heath: Does not the Leader of the House realise what is clear to everyone else, which is that the great majority of Members want to be able to express an opinion and take a decision without having any Whips on? This is quite understandable. I have already put to the right hon. Gentleman the suggestion that if there were to be a debate in these circumstances, and the Bill consequently expressed the will of the House, whatever it might be, I believe that the House would allow the Second Reading to go forward formally.
The Leader of the House has not accepted that suggestion, so perhaps I may make another proposal. I believe that in those circumstances the whole House would be prepared for the Bill to go to the Second Reading Committee. That would not take up a Second Reading day on the Floor of the House at all. Would the right hon. Gentleman accept a day's debate in which hon. Members can express their views without the Whips on, which is what I believe the House wants, and the Bill then to go to the Second Reading Committee?

Mr. Crossman: To be fair to the right hon. Gentleman, I think that he had better look at the Bill before he decides that it is suitable for a Second Reading Committee. We have to consider the nature of the Bill. This is certainly a

possibility. If it can be discussed through the usual channels we will do so, but we want to get on with the Measure—[HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] We want the Second Reading before the Easter Recess—[HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] Because this is part of the Government's plans.

Mr. Wellbeloved: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. My right hon. Friend has said that it is his duty to protect the rights of back-bench Members. He knows that Government business is only carried through this House on the loyalty of those hon. Members who obey the party system. Is it in order for my right hon. Friend to keep relying on this business of protecting back-bench Members, when he knows jolly well that it does not apply?

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has been in the House long enough to know that that was not a point of order.

Mr. Coe: Reverting to the critical position of the textile industry, may I urge my right hon. Friend to consider finding time before Easter at a morning sitting for at least a short debate on this important matter?

Mr. Crossman: That is a proposal well worthy of consideration. I should like to consult the usual channels, though I wonder whether this is a suitable subject for a morning sitting. If it is, we would certainly consider that suggestion.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether I can have an assurance that he will keep his pledged word about having discussions for an early debate on Aden, and not treat that promise in the light and cavalier way in which he has treated previous promises on decimal currency?

Mr. Crossman: I entirely repudiate that suggestion. I have not treated any promises I have made in a light way. During last week's business exchanges I precisely stated the situation. I warned the House that the Government were committed to this Measure and also that we had to get on with the programme, which, I said, we would also discuss through the usual channels. If it is true that the discussion did not take place I accept my rebuke—it should have taken place. Apart from that, I think that it is


unfair of the hon. Gentleman even to suggest that any promise has been broken. I shall keep my promise to speak to my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, and I think that the hon. Gentleman will regret he should have treated a fellow Member in that way.

Mr. Henig: Will the Leader of the House consider the suggestion that the time he now proposes to allot to the Second Reading of the Decimal Currency Bill should be given to a discussion of the much more urgent question of unemployment in Lancashire; and that the matter of decimalisation should be left until after the Easter Recess, so that he and his right hon. Friends might reconsider it in view of the manifest wishes of many hon. Members on this side of the House?

Mr. Crossman: This would be a matter of losing a day of Government business. We have a lot of business, and are determined, I think rightly, to get our main Bills through Second Reading and into Committee, if we are to end our business in July at a reasonable date. We therefore need to get these main Bills into Committee. That is why the main Bills we are putting forward are now being completed. We have announced the Leasehold Reform Bill, and that, together with the Bill on shipbuilding and the Decimal Currency Bill are three main Measures we want to get into Committee. If we do not get them we shall not be up before the middle of August.

Mr. Ian Gilmour: Since the Leader of the House is widely thought to be a Parliamentary reformer and to be concerned to restore the power of Parliament, is it not a test of his sincerity that he should allow a free vote on decimalisation?

Mr. Crossman: I would not say that the allowing of a free vote on this, or that —which, by the way, is not for the Leader of the House, but for the Whips on both sides, to decide—is a matter which really tests the supremacy of Parliament. Parliament needs parties and Whips to keep going. It also needs to respect the rights of private Members. What we need—[Interruption.] The hon. Member asked a question; he might listen to the answer. What we need to achieve is a

balance between the two. The issue we have to decide is whether this particular case is suitable for the way he recommends, or the way I recommend.

Mr. Francis Noel-Baker: Is not my right hon. Friend aware that in the 22 years since I first came to this House the rights and powers and influence of back benchers have been steadily eroded and that if he and the Chancellor of the Exchequer persist in treating what is not a party matter as a matter for the Whips, and treating his hon. Friends as only Lobby fodder, they are pushing us too far?

Mr. Crossman: I think that it would be a great mistake for my hon. Friend to have the impression that I have ever thought of him as only Lobby fodder. The question is whether on this particular Bill there should be no advice given by either side to its members. This is not a matter for the House, but something we should discuss among ourselves. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]

Mr. Speaker: Sir Charles Taylor.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Hon. Members make such a noise that they cannot hear whom I call. May I at this stage remind the House that there is important business ahead of the House on which some hon. Members feel keenly. Sir Charles Taylor.

Mr. Kershaw: On a point of order. Do we understand from the last remark by the Leader of the House that he is to withdraw the business of next week into his party committee?

Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order.

Sir Charles Taylor: What is the extreme hurry about the Decimal Currency Bill? If the Government listened to the view of the House they might well want to withdraw the present Bill, which they have published prematurely.

Mr. Crossman: As I explained to an hon. Friend, what we are seeking to do is to get our Bills through Second Reading and into Committee in good time so that we can complete our business by the end of July. That will be impossible unless we get the Bills through in good time.


In reply to the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Kershaw) I made no suggestion that we should withdraw anything. What I said was that it should be a decision among ourselves on each side as to what advice we should give to our members. That is what we usually do in private and it applies to the hon. Member's side as well as to mine.

Mr. Ogden: While I would not wish to add to the difficulties of the Leader of the House, may I ask whether he is aware that there is also deep anxiety in some parts of the House about the intentions of the Government in the matter of prices, productivity and incomes? Will he consider giving some time for a debate on this matter, so that we may know the intentions of the Government and the Government may know the intentions of some hon. Members? Will he note the direction from which this comes?

Mr. Crossman: I am glad that my hon. Friend has mentioned this, because it is a subject of major importance. As the House knows, we have had some important meetings this week and further discussions will take place. The Government are aware, of course, that on this issue hon. Members on both sides, particularly ours, feel a vital interest. I can assure them that a statement will be made to the House as soon as possible.

Mr. Woodburn: On a point of order. I gather than there is a great deal of difference of opinion about some detail of the Decimal Currency Bill. If a Bill is presented to the House, is it not in order to amend the detail when it comes to Committee?

Mr. Crossman: I would not be honest with the House if I suggested that I think it just a matter of detail. There are two or three proposals, one of which has been included in the Government's proposals, and another, or two others, have been turned down. I gathered that the desire was to have all three discussed on a par, as though there were no commitment. As I explained last week, this was impossible because the Government made clear in the White Paper where they stood.

Mr. Jopling: Reverting to the matter of decimal currency, in view of the strong feelings expressed on both sides of the

House, and the offer made by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, and also accepting the difficulties the Leader of the House is in about Government time, will not the right hon. Gentleman at least agree to have conversations with his colleagues to see if he can find a way of accommodating the strong feelings of hon. Members?

Mr. Crossman: I think that I explained to the Leader of the Opposition on his last intervention that these proposals, which, as he agrees, are novel, would have to be thought out carefully. I would certainly discuss them through the usual channels.

Mr. Brooks: Following the exchange we have had for nearly three-quarters of an hour, cannot my right hon. Friend now see that any effort by the Government to put the Whips on on decimalisation would be seen by everyone who has witnessed these exchanges to be totally indefensible and outrageous?

Mr. Crossman: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member had not finished his question.

Mr. Brooks: Is not my right hon. Friend aware that following the publication of the White Paper, last autumn, there has been a remarkable change in public opinion and a remarkable unanimity of sentiment has been expressed by numerous organisations?

Mr. Speaker: Order. We cannot argue the issue itself.

Mr. Brooks: Will my right hon. Friend not, then, change his mind?

Mr. Crossman: Again, let me remind my hon. Friend that the issue we are discussing today is one about the business of the House and when it should take place. The question how the Government and their supporters on the back benches should view this matter, and how we should advise one another, is not one for this place at all. This is something which should be discussed in another part of this building. I suggest to my hon. Friends that if they want to discuss it, this is not the place to do so. They might watch the Tories; they do not do it here.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. May I remind some hon. and right hon. Members that there is no second round for anyone on business questions.

Mr. Blaker: The right hon. Gentleman claimed a little while ago that he had not been discourteous to the House. How then does he explain his claim that the feeling on both sides of the House about decimal currency is synthetic? On reflection, does he not regret that word and wish to withdraw it?

Mr. Crossman: If I made a charge that I thought it synthetic, I withdraw it. I think it was a longer and more complicated sentence. Nevertheless, I am an amenable person and if the hon. Member does not like the word "synthetic", I would be the first to withdraw it.

Mr. Maxwell: While recognising the difficulties of the Leader of the House and admiring the way he has batted here for almost an hour, may I ask whether he will agree that Governments have sometimes been found to be wrong? Will he perhaps consider this? If the Leader of the Opposition, instead of playing party politics, would give a day to debate this matter, would he accept that and allow a debate on decimal currency before he introduces the Bill on Second Reading?

Mr. Crossman: I think that we have now moved beyond that. The Leader of the Opposition has made a specific proposal to me which needs to be tested to be practicable; it needs some working out. As I have said, I will consider the proposal through the usual channels.

Sir J. Rodgers: When the right hon. Gentleman gave an undertaking last week to have discussions through the usual channels on a possible debate on decimalisation, was the Bill ready for presentation or was it speeded up to avoid a debate?

Mr. Crossman: The Bill was ready. As I said, I could not give an actual date, but it was ready for early legislation.

Mr. Lipton: While admitting that I am an unrepentant ten-bobber, may I ask my right hon. Friend to consider this possibility—scrapping the business set down for two morning sittings next week

and substituting a debate on the relative merits of 10s. or £1 as the unit and to have a free vote on Wednesday night?

Mr. Crossman: I appreciate the growing realisation that morning sittings serve a useful purpose. We have already had an important debate on unemployment in certain areas. I would not have thought that this question was suitable for morning sittings, but that we needed it for an important debate on Wednesday afternoon.

Sir S. McAdden: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Has the hon. Member for Southend, East already asked a question?

Sir S. MacAdden: No, Mr. Speaker I asked a question of the Prime Minister, earlier.
Does the Leader of the House recall that in reply to an earlier business question, on the shipping industry, he said that it was right and proper that we should debate the Report of the Pearson Committee before proceeding to legislation on that vast and important matter? Does he not consider that the changeover to decimal currency is also a vast and important matter which will affect the shipping industry as well as every other industry? Why will he not let us debate that matter and come to a decision on the course we want to pursue before introducing legislation?

Mr. Crossman: We must consider each case on its merits and whether we should have the procedure sometimes adopted in important matters of debating the White Paper on policy followed by a debate on the Second Reading of the Bill. Some important matters go one way and some go another. The hon. Member and I differ on this particular case.

Sir Knox Cunningham: Would not the solution be for the Leader of the House to use the time before Easter for a free vote and discussion and have the Second Reading of the Bill some time after Easter or Whitsun? What is the hurry for the Second Reading?

Mr. Crossman: Again, I apologise for otiose repetition. This is the fifth time the question has been asked me in an almost identical form. I shall repeat


my answer because each time it is repeated it is more persuasive.
If we wish to get our Bills through Parliament I know from bitter experience that it is important to get Second Readings through before the Budget period, get the Bills into Committee and then into another place. That is the reason why every Government seeks to get major Second Readings before the Easter Recess. I am surprised that the hon. and learned Gentleman, with his experience of government, does not realise that.

Mr. Roebuck: Does my right hon. Friend realise that his obstinacy on the matter is causing great embarrassment to his hon. Friends? Will he consider the will of the House, think about the matter, and come back with new proposals?

Mr. Crossman: With all respect to my hon. Friend, the embarrassment is mutual.

Mr. Webster: Does the Leader of the House acknowledge that he needs the co-operation of the House if he is to get legislation? He is hardly going about it in the best way.

Mr. Crossman: That is not really a question about the business for next week. But I shall reply. I think that, on reflection, the hon. Gentleman will see that his allegation is obviously untrue. As Leader of the House I am putting before the House our proposals for business, the days on which we shall take the main Second Readings, and telling the House in advance that it is proposed to take the Second Reading of the Decimal Currency Bill before Easter. I do not think that it is discourteous to the House for the Government to announce that decision.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: Does the Leader of the House now recognise that, quite apart from other considerations, in view of the length of time the matter has been discussed this afternoon, and the number of interventions, there is so much interest in it in the House that it would be impossible to get in in one day the number of Members who would want to make speeches so that there could be an adequate debate on the subject?

Mr. Crossman: It would not be the first occasion on which there was a queue

of speakers to speak on an important issue.

Mr. Philip Noel-Baker: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The right hon. Gentleman has already asked a business question.

Mr. James Davidson: Will the Leader of the House tell the House to whom he has made the commitment on the introduction of decimal currency about which he has talked? He mentioned a commitment which he must adhere to. To whom was the commitment made?

Mr. Crossman: If I used the word "commitment" I should have said "the Government have stated that the decision has been taken." The Government decided on the course which they will put to the House. The House will debate it and vote on it and either agree or disagree. The hon. Gentleman should not think that an outrageously constitutional procedure.

Mr. J. E. B. Hill: Surely the discourtesy shown not only to this side of the House, but to his own side, makes clear that the Leader of the House should not prejudge the issue on the Bill or put on the Whips? He will find that instead of decimal currency he will need a four-line Whip.

Mr. Crossman: I again repeat that the issue we discuss at business question time is what business we do each day. How each party conducts its affairs is for the party to decide, and is not normally discussed at business time.

Mr. Hector Hughes: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Are you not allowing the supplementary questions to run for an unusually long period? Would it not be a good idea for us to get on with the business of the House?

Mr. Speaker: I am grateful for the crystal clarity and truth of what the hon. and learned Gentleman has just said. The Question is—

Mr. Lubbock: On a point of order. I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely,
the refusal of the Leader of the House to find time for a debate on decimal currency in which the opinion of the House can be


expressed freely before the Second Reading of the Decimal Currency Bill.
I apologise to you, Mr. Speaker, for not having given you notice that I intended to raise that matter, but, as you will appreciate, the matter on which I seek to initiate a debate has only just come before the House in the replies which the Leader of the House has just given.
This matter is definite because until today it was still uncertain whether there would be a debate on the White Paper to precede a debate on the Second Reading, following the promise the Leader of the House gave the Leader of the Opposition last week, and the implications of the replies he gave to several questions I put to him at business question time before Christmas, including 1st and 8th December.
I suggest that the matter is urgent, because unless we can have a debate on the Mite Paper before Easter the Bill will go through in its present form under the power of the Whips, and a decision will have been made which, I believe, will be very unpopular throughout the country.
I suggest that it is also a matter of public importance. That suggestion needs no elaboration bearing in mind that at least 20 questions on decimal currency have been addressed to the Leader of the House from both sides this afternoon, and that opinions have also been expressed by influential bodies outside—the Trades Union Congress, the Confederation of British Industry, the Institute of Chartered Accountants, the Association of British Chambers of Commerce, the Consumer Council, the Co-operative Union and—this morning—The Times.
There is no doubt that it is a matter of public importance far transcending the

immediate question whether we should have one day or two for a Second Reading debate. The Leader of the House has had clear expression of opinion from both sides that it is the will of the House that we should have a debate before Second Reading.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman seeks to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9 for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely,
the refusal of the Leader of the House to find time for a debate on decimal currency in which the opinion of the House can be expressel freely before the Second Reading of the Decimal Currency Bill.
I have no complaint to make to the hon. Gentleman for not giving me notice that he sought to raise that matter. It would have been manifestly impossible for him to give me notice up until about a quarter of an hour ago.
I do not think that the Motion can be submitted to the House, as to discuss the matter would anticipate proceedings on an Order of the Day. The House has long ago established precedents which must now guide the Chair in this sense. Instances of application for Standing Order No. 9 being refused in these special circumstances are found as far back as 1888, a few years after the Standing Order was passed in 1882. I cannot, therefore, allow the hon. Gentleman's application to be submitted to the House this afternoon.

WELSH AFFAIRS

Matter of Rural Development in Wales and Monmouthshire, being a matter relating exclusively to Wales and Monmouthshire, referred to the Welsh Grand Commitee for their consideration.—[Mr. Crossman.]

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY

[11TH ALLOTTED DAY] [2nd Series],—considered.

SCOTLAND (LOCAL GOVERNMENT PAY AWARD)

Mr. Speaker: Before I call on the right hon. Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble), it may be convenient to announce that I have selected the third Amendment on the Order Paper, standing in the name of the Prime Minister and the names of some of his right hon. Friends.

4.30 p.m.

Mr. Michael Noble (Argyll): I beg to move,
That this House deplores the refusal of the Secretary of State for Scotland to grant the National and Local Government Officers Association pay award, which is being paid in England and Wales.
Some people may argue that the point we have taken for this debate is rather a narrow one against the background of Scottish affairs generally in which the people of Scotland are heavily involved, but nevertheless it affects the life and work of about 22,000 people in Scotland. These people are not concentrated in a single industry or factory, but none the less they are important for that reason, for they are scattered through the length and breadth of the whole country and the feeling on this subject reflects that scatter.
These people have been, unfortunately, the victims of the freeze, and this is perhaps a piece of bad luck for which they are not themselves responsible. The Secretary of State for Scotland has said on many occasions that he is protecting Scotland from the effects of the freeze. I think that it would be of help if I relate quickly the time-table of these events, but I do not want to bore the House with a large number of details and dates.
The negotiations started as long ago as June, 1965, when it was quite clear that the situation with regard to the pay of local government employees in Scotland needed revision. Three or four months later, in October, 1965, agreement was reached in the National Joint Coun-

cil for a 3½ per cent. increase to be given immediately pending a complete review both of the scales and the salary structure within the industry. Since the review would obviously take a lot of thought and consideration, the immediate award was given to cover the period.
Between October, 1965, and March, 1966, a good deal of work, as happens in this kind of discussion, was carried out in committees and so on. In March, 1966, the formal negotiations began. At the end of May, the employers and the National Association of Local Government Officers were able to come to very close agreement on what they thought necessary, but, because of the early warning system then in operation, they had, of course, to submit their ideas to the Department of Economic Affairs through the Scottish Development Department, and this they did. When they did so, they asked particularly that the settlement should be reached if possible in late June or early July. This was not because they suspected that anything significant was going to happen on 20th July, but because the negotiations had come to a fairly satisfactory conclusion and they hoped to get on with their work.
Obviously, at that time there were considerable difficulties for the Government in accepting the particular form in which the agreement had been reached. The aim was perhaps for a 3½ per cent. increase, which was reasonable, but there were, inevitably, a certain number of specialist cases where the increase was significantly more. I do not think that anyone blames either the Secretary of State or the Department of Economic Affairs for having to look very carefully at this to see whether it fitted in with other arrangements. Therefore, it is not surprising that a certain length of time passed while thoughts passed between the Government and the negotiating body.
But the English agreement was reached on 13th July, and I think that it was not unnatural for the negotiators in the Scottish agreement to realise that if awards had been agreed for England, and as the whole purpose was to try and make the two awards as similar as possible, it was quite reasonable that they should attempt immediately to follow the broad pattern of the English settlement and see


if they could get early agreement. Therefore, they moved with considerable speed and called a meeting for 29th July in order to try to reach final agreement on the English pattern of awards.

Mr. A. Woodburn: It the Scots negotiators wanted to follow the English pattern, why did they not decide their claim at the same time as the English and put forward the same proposals?

Mr. Noble: I do not think that I can speak with absolute certainty for what was in the minds of a large number of people in the local authorities of Scotland, whether employers or employees, but the pattern has been to try to get conditions of service and salary scales broadly comparable in England and Scotland, for the simple reason that in the past there has been a good deal of movement from Scotland to the South, where rather higher wages in some cases were being paid.
As I was saying, the negotiators decided to convene a meeting for 29th July, which was as soon as they reasonably could arrange after the English decision had been announced. But two things happened. On 20th July, the Prime Minister made his statement to the House, and on the very day of the meeting—29th July—the White Paper on Prices and Incomes was issued. Although the meeting was held, they were unable usefully to discuss their proposals because the White Paper was not available in Scotland. So it was not until 13th September that the National Joint Council agreed to the new scales and that they should be then frozen until 16th March.
The White Paper, in paragraphs 29 and 30, envisaged that there should be some exceptions specifically to cover either a severe loss of manpower or gross anomalies, so that the Government, in bringing in the freeze, realised that there must be some loopholes for specially deserving cases. The Secretary of State had promised Scotland that he would shield it from the effects of the freeze, and on both counts—a possible severe loss of manpower and gross anomalies—there was at least a good case to be looked at.
I turn now to the Amendment standing in the name of the Prime Minister and other Members of the Government. I understand that the Under-Secretary of

State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan), is to move the Amendment and that the Secretary of State for Scotland is holding his fire until the end of the debate. We all realise that then maybe rather more critical for him. The Amendment protests that we on this side are motivated by
…petty motives of electoral advantage …
in the first place and, in the second place, that we impute—we do not say it in the Motion—discrimination against Scotland. I will examine each of those propositions in turn.
On 20th January this year, N.A.L.G.O. was told for the first time that it would get nothing before 1st July and that even then the whole question of an agreement would have to be renegotiated according to whatever then was the current norm. There was an immediate outburst in Scotland about this. The Opposition put down our Motion criticising the Government and hon. Members opposite took the opportunity, on the day before my hon. Friend the Member for Moray and Nairn (Mr. G. Campbell) had an Adjournment debate, quite properly to see the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. They got, as we had had continuously, an absolutely curt but polite bland refusal to consider the position at all.
In the first few days of February following this, Glasgow, not a city where there is often a unanimity of view in the council, unanimously, Progressives and Labour Party alike, passed a resolution saying that the action of the Government was extremely damaging to Scottish local government. On about the same day, the Treasurer of the great city of Dundee wrote to both of Dundee's Members of Parliament and said that the arrangement was "completely unacceptable" and went on to talk of a
very real danger of a complete breakdown in local authority administration in Scotland.
A day or two later, Aberdeen Council met and the third great city of Scotland unanimously passed a resolution condemning the present situation which the Government, perhaps through no direct fault of their own—that is for hon. Members to decide—had succeeded in achieving.
A great many other local authorities have written to all Scottish Members on


both sides of the House. I do not know of one local authority which is supporting the Government on this issue.

Mr. Thomas Steele: Oh, yes.

Mr. Noble: The hon. Gentleman says "Oh, yes". I am delighted that there should be some, and no doubt the hon. Gentleman will tell us about it, but at least all the major cities and the vast number of local authorities who have written to hon. Members on both sides of the House are solidly on our side in this matter.
Is it suggested by the Secretary of State that these authorities are motivated by some curious petty electoral advantage in being unanimously opposed to the Government's policy and, if so, on whose side is the electoral advantage? There is complete unanimity in these councils which in each city are controlled by the Socialists at the moment.
Let us now consider the record inside the House. On 9th February, the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) and the hon. Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Sir M. Galpern), himself a former Lord Provost of Glasgow, put down a Motion in almost exactly the same terms as that which we have put down for this debate.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Will the right hon. Gentleman agree that we put down that Motion first and that the Opposition jumped on our bandwagon?

Mr. Noble: I should like to correct the hon. Gentleman. Our first Motion was put down by the Scottish Conservative Members on 30th January and we have merely noted that the terms of his Motion are almost precisely the same as ours. Does he feel that he is activated by petty electoral advantage? If he does, there are many of his colleagues who have signed his Motion, and they were quite right to do so.
But, apart from what has happened within these four walls, the hon. Member for Paisley (Mr. John Robertson), who is not in his place at the moment —perhaps he is having some electoral exercise elsewhere today—made a speech in Paisley on 12th February when he was reported as saying:

Every Scottish Member of Parliament would back N.A.L.G.O.'s case".
This was something said not by one of my hon. Friends, but by an hon. Member opposite. He used the word "every"; we shall have to see in the Lobby tonight whether his forecast, which he presumably discussed with his hon. Friends, comes true.
But there will be an even greater interest in this, because we have all read with some interest and a little amusement the comments by the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence) in the papers today. He said:
I am sick and tired of Ministers of the Government who state in the tea rooms and corridors that if they were not Ministers they would abstain".
I have not had a chance of discussing in the Tea Room or Corridors with Ministers of the Scottish Office what they have been saying, but the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East—and I believe that he, too, is in Scotland today—will not be able to feel sick and tired if he notices some of his colleagues who are Ministers not living up to what they have been saying in the tea rooms. But it is arrant nonsense to talk about petty electioneering in this context when practically every hon. Member who has opened his mouth has said exactly the same thing on the subject.

Mr. Tom Fraser (Hamilton): Oh, no.

Mr. Noble: There may be some hon. Members who have said exactly the opposite, and I hope that during the debate they will make their views clear.

Mr. Fraser: Surely the right hon. Gentleman knows that there are hon. Members who have said exactly the opposite. He knows that; why does he not acknowledge it?

Mr. Noble: I accept that perhaps I ought to know it, but I am bound to admit that I have not myself heard it. I shall listen to the debate with interest, especially to the Government Front Bench speaking more officially than those who have spoken to me in the Tea Room or Corridors.
To appreciate the complete idiocy of the Government's Amendment, I commend to the House reading what the Leader of the House said at business


questions on 16th February, when he said:
We have talked on this subject for some time. If it were true that Scotland is in a state of near revolt on this issue, then it would be a grave dereliction of duty on the part of the Opposition Front Bench not to take some of its Supply time to discuss it.
He went on:
There is a great deal of hypocrisy going on about this."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th February, 1967; Vol. 741, c. 825.]
Perhaps my noble Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North (Earl of Dalkeith), who used the word "revolt", might have been guilty of slight exaggeration in the heat of the moment, but the Secretary of State, who is now laughing, cannot deny that the councils of Glasgow, Dundee, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Ayrshire and other councils widely throughout Scotland have all unanimously expressed their worry and apprehension.

Mr. Peter Doig: rose—

Mr. Noble: It has been expressed on the B.B.C., on television and in the newspapers, and regularly in the House. So there is certainly a very serious situation.

Mr. Doig: Would the right hon. Gentleman give his authority for saying that Dundee unanimously rejected this and were opposed to it? That is what he said in the course of his speech. The only information I have is a personal letter from the honorary Treasurer of the city of Dundee that no mention of the matter had been made or discussed either in the committee or the corporation itself.

Mr. Noble: I will certainly withdraw my comment that it was a unanimous decision, if the hon. Gentleman would like me to do so. Probably I exaggerated in saying that. All that I know of—and it certainly has not been contradicted from Dundee—is that the Dundee Treasurer, as I understand it, wrote, and I imagine that the treasurer wrote expressing the feelings of the Socialist members in Dundee, because it is very well known how closely Dundee Socialist members stick together.

Earl of Dalkeith: For the sake of the record, I did with great care use the words, "a state of near revolt".

Mr. Noble: I think that the Leader of the House used that expression, too. But he did say that if that were so it would be a grave dereliction of duty for us not to use our Supply time to discuss it. He is clearly on record as saying that.
As the Secretary of State knows, we had a meeting with him last week after what the Leader of the House had said. It was right and proper that we should wait for that meeting before we took any action, but as soon as we had had that meeting, and as soon as the Secretary of State was unable to give us any indication of a move in Government thinking, we did exactly what the Leader of the House said we ought to do; we took our first opportunity of taking a Supply day to let the House discuss this very important point.
So if there is any question of hypocrisy, the Leader of the House, and those who have signed this Motion with him, might well study what he said on that date. If they really think that this was pure electioneering, is it not a little odd that it was the Government Front Bench, on the day after the Leader of the House had made his statement, who chose the date of the Pollock by-election. This was entirely within their choosing, and they chose it.
On the second count, I do not want to go into great detail about whether or not we imput discrimination against Scotland in the Motion we have put on the Order Paper. The Secretary of State is clearly very sensitive about this and feels that there is such an imputation. If the cap fits, then he should wear it, because, if I may remind him and the House again, these people who have had their wages frozen happen to be Scotsmen, and the Secretary of State promised the House that he would shield Scotland from the effects of the freeze.
I could speak for a considerable time on other matters about which Scotland does not feel very happy by the action of the Secretary of State recently, but I do not think that it is right to do so as we have comparatively little time. Let me move on to the particular problem that faces the Government today and say straightaway that I appreciate that the problem is certainly not an easy one. I also say that it has got to be solved. It must be solved, because the position


is not just that these people have got their agreed rise frozen until the 16th March, or the 1st July, or any other date. There is total uncertainty. They may have to wait for at least another four, five or six months, and they may then find that the norm which the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Department of Economic Affairs have set down is a very low one. Their negotiations will have to start all over again, and they do not know in the least where they are.
It is perfectly clear that in all fields, taken as a whole, wages in England are at the moment running something between 6 per cent. and 9 per cent. above those in Scotland.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. William Ross): And always have.

Mr. Noble: And always have, perhaps.
This, we have been told is one of the main reasons—there are two others, but I do not want to impinge on the later debate today—why we have emigration from our country. The situation today in the local authority field exists because of the fortuitous fact that 13th July was the date on which the England award was agreed and the Scottish award was not agreed in total until September.
I do not think that the Scottish Office or anybody in this House wants to impute blame for holding it up, because I do not think that even the Government knew what was going to happen on 20th July until the 19th, and so no blame should be attached to them. But as a result of N.A.L.G.O., officers in England have received an increase of about £130 in the clerical field and up to £300 in some others.
Anyone who has worked in this particular area of government knows that there are certain types of officers who are extremely scarce both in Scotland and in England. These include welfare officers, inspectors of weights and measures, sanitary inspectors, and so on.
There is, and always has been, very great competition between the two countries in order to attract the best people. Every Scottish authority is aware that in the ensuing four, five, six or seven months —this is the problem because nobody knows for how long this will go on—that it may well lose those key men that

are sought after because wage scales south of the Border are so significantly higher.
I believe that no one in the House, however strongly he may feel about it, would want to support some of the calls that have been made for strike action, and so on. I, for one, would deplore that. But it is absolutely essential for the Secretary of State to find a solution to this problem, and to find it soon, immediately.
I know that it is always awkward for the Government to have to give way on a problem, but occasionally, if one has to lose face, that is better in the long term than doing an obvious injustice to people who are very important to the local authority world in Scotland. The Government have had a great deal of time to think about this problem. It has come to a head in the last three weeks or a month, but I have given the House the timetable on how long these negotiations went on.
It was, after all, on 20th July that the freeze started, and the Secretary of State must have known that there was very nearly an agreement in the N.J.I.C. at that time. He certainly did know that agreement in that body was reached by 13th September He also knew about the anomaly which was created and about the problems which would be created by such wide wage differences across the Border.
He knew, therefore, that there was a grave danger of emigration of absolutely key men from Scottish local authorities. He knew early in February the position that had been taken up by the great cities of Scotland and by at least the bulk of local authorities. Therefore, at any time in the last seven and a half months he could have implemented his promise to shield Scotland from the effects of the freeze.
He has been seen and heard to be doing nothing on this promise. The most dramatic effect of the freeze in Scotland seems to have been to have turned our Secretary of State into a block of ice. Ail Scotland would welcome a change at the top.

5.0 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Bruce Millan): I beg to move, in line 1, to leave out from 'deplores'


to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
'the action of Her Majesty's Conservative Opposition in endeavouring to exploit for petty motives of electoral advantage the genuine national feelings of the Scots by its unjustified imputation of discrimination against Scotland'.
I thought that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble) was in an extremely subdued mood this afternoon. We had understood that his speech was to be a slashing attack on the Government. I have never heard a weaker and thinner speech introducing a motion of Censure in this House at any time since I have been here, which is since 1959.
The right hon. Gentleman said three times, I think, that my right hon. Friend had stated that he intended to protect Scotland from the effects of the freeze. In fact, my right hon. Friend never said any such thing. He said—and this is what he has done—that he would protect Scotland from the effects of the squeeze, which is an entirely different thing. [Interruption.] I know that the right hon. Gentleman does not understand this, but the squeeze is the other economic measure taken by the Government. The freeze is the prices and incomes policy which has been laid out in two White Papers, the first one about the standstill, and the second one about the period of severe restraint.

Mr. John Brewis (Galloway): rose—

Mr. Millan: No. There is nothing in either of these White Papers which says anything about excluding Scotland, or any other part of the United Kingdom, from the effects of the freeze, but I shall return to this in a moment.
I want, first, to lay the background to this debate and to the decision taken by the Government. This is to be found in paragraph 34 of the White Paper on the Period of Severe Restraint, which says:
Where, however, a commitment existed on or before 20th July to review pay with effect from a later date, but the amount of any improvement had not been determined by 20th July, the operative date should be deferred until at least 1st July, 1967 …
The agreement for English local government staffs, was reached on 13th July, 1966 and was, therefore, not caught by this provision, but the agreement for Scottish local authority staffs was not reached until

13th September, 1966—and I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman at least on this, that he did not muddle the dates as nearly everyone else who has entered into this dispute has— and, therefore, this agreement was caught by the terms of the White Paper. The claim for Scottish local government workers therefore falls to be considered under the criterion to he laid down for the period following 1st July, 1967.

Sir John Gilmour (Fife, East): The hon. Gentleman quoted from paragraph 34 of the White Paper. Would not he agree that paragraph 29 makes an exception on the distribution of manpower?

Mr. Millan: I shall come to that. I shall answer not only the points made this afternoon by the right hon. Gentleman, few as they were, but the other criticisms which have been made of the Government's decision on this.
It seems that the case against the Government's decision, if it is to be deployed at all, must be deployed on one of two grounds. It could be deployed on the basis which involves the rejection of the whole of the Government's incomes policy, and, in particular, the standstill period of severe restraint. I shall not argue this issue at any length, because it has been exhaustively debated in the House and the House has come to a decision about it. All I say is that as a result of our prices and incomes policy, and the other measures which we have taken, prices and incomes have been stabilised and the economy has steadily improved, particularly with regard to exports, and that the Government are determined to see that this improvement is continued and to develop their prices and incomes policy to that end.
The alternative argument is that there are special circumstances in the case of the Scottish local authority workers which would make it right or reasonable for them to be excluded from the strict letter of the White Paper, or at least treated as one of the exceptions allowed for in the White Paper. It is this case which is the real issue in this matter, and with which I shall deal in some detail. I shall demonstrate that there are, in fact, no grounds for exceptional treatment in this claim according to the White Paper, or, indeed, in the matter of equity.
First, I would like to deal with the question of dates, because the suggestion


has been made quite widely that if it had not been for Government intervention in the normal process of negotiations between the unions and the employers the Scottish agreement would have been reached at the same time as the English one, and there would have been no difficulty about its implementation.
If one looks at the record in previous years of similar negotiations, one sees right away that the time lag in 1966 was not at all unusual. In 1959, for example, the English increase was from 1st April, the Scottish one from 16th July, a gap of three and a half months. In 1960, the English increase was from 1st September, the Scottish from 1st December, a gap of three months. In 1962, there was a gap of one month, and in subsequent years there have been gaps of about six weeks. Any gap, therefore, between the English and Scottish settlements in 1966 was not in any way unusual, and certainly had nothing to do with Government intervention, and this also becomes clear when we look at the actual dates involved in 1966.
These agreements and the English agreement were negotiated under the early warning system under which the employers side of the National Joint Industrial Council was under an obligation to give notice to the Government of an impending settlement. This was done in England on 4th March. It was not done in Scotland until 27th May, a gap of nearly three months. The right hon. Gentleman said that negotiations started a long time before that. This is true. I understand that they started in the middle of 1965, but the Government were in no sense and in no way a party to these negotiations. We were neither represented, nor had we any influence at all over the procedure of the negotiations. They were a private matter between the two sides of the Joint Industrial Council, and, as I say, the first notification that we had of this was on 27th May.

Mr. Gordon Campbell (Moray and Nairn): There is one point which has been ventilated, and to which we would like to know the answer. It has been said that the reason the Scottish notification was not until later was that they started negotiations first and the procedure for notification under the voluntary

system had not even been brought in when they started.

Mr. Millan: The hon. Gentleman has got it wrong. I shall answer all these points; and it would help if there were not too many interruptions, because if there are I shall speak for far too long. What the hon. Gentleman said is not correct.
The negotiations in 1966 followed a similar pattern to that of the previous negotiations. This is not seriously in dispute. The claim submitted on 27th May involved a complete restructuring of grades within the A.P.T.C. classes, including changes in the incremental steps within each grade. It was therefore not possible to say without further information what was the extent of the general increase in pay which was envisaged in the claim.
We therefore invited the employers side of the N.J.I.C., which was communicating with us in the normal way, to give us further information showing the percentage increases at each incremental step for each grade of salary concerned. This it did on 17th June, and it is only from this date that the timetable really seriously began to operate.
The claim was rejected by the Government on 8th July without any undue delay. It must be remembered that this is a complicated matter. The gap was only between 17th June and 8th July. The claim was rejected on the grounds that it did not conform to the prices and incomes policy. I shall explain in a moment why this was so. The standstill intervened on 20th July, and it was not, as the right hon. Gentleman said, until 16th September that the N.J.I.C. reached a revised agreement providing for a new salary structure.
There is no doubt that the present agreed claim was not reached before 20th July. It has been argued that this does not really matter, and that dates are only a technicality, because the Scottish local government workers are doing the same kind of job as their equivalents in England, and that they should be entitled to the same increases. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] This argument rests on the basis that the Scottish claim was roughly equivalent to the claims agreed for England and Wales, and that the salary structure in Scotland is the same as


that south of the Border. However, neither of these propositions is in the least true. In the first place, the structure of salary scales in Scotland is quite different to the structure south of the Border. I have all the details here and will be glad to quote them to hon. Gentlemen if need be.
Obviously, I would not claim for one moment that there are no similarities. It would be a remarkable thing if two equivalent bodies of workers had salary scales which never met at any particular point. That is not the position but the fact is that the structure is not similar except in minor details—it is substantially different. Secondly, to deal with the claims themselves, the English settlement was for 7 per cent. over a period of two years and was in accordance with the norm being applied at that time of 3½ per cent. per year. The Scottish settlement as proposed and intimated to us, with details on 17th June, showed a wide variation in the increase proposed. It was not a straight increase, but the increases proposed varied from between 4 per cent. to 9 per cent. This seemed to represent an average increase of between 6 per cent. and 7 per cent.
The employers' side however maintain that the actual increase worked out at between 5½ per cent. and 6 per cent. and we agreed to consider the proposals on that basis. I want to emphasise that this was not said to be an agreement which would be held firm over two years as was the English one. The English agreement fitted in with the norm of 3½ per cent. per year. The Scottish agreement, at least in the minds of N.A.L.G.O., because it has admitted this, in a circular which all hon. Members received, dated 28th February, was conceived of as one lasting for only one year and was well beyond the normal norm of that 3½ per cent.
This is admitted by N.A.L.G.O. Despite an earlier communication from N.A.L.G.O. which sought to give the impression that the claim was only for 3½ per cent., whereas there was no one point of any salary scale, at which the claim was as low, which was as low as 3½ per cent., the facts are not really in dispute. To sum up on this point, it is abundantly clear that the Scottish claim was not the same as the English claim, nor was it anything like it. It was some-

thing quite different. It is perfectly true that the later proposals in September were much nearer to the English claim, but even then there were substantial differences.

Mr. Noble: Can the hon. Gentleman clear up one point, because I think that he is in slight danger of misleading the House, I am sure unintentionally? The English claim for 7 per cent. for two years was not a flat 7 per cent. at all grades. There were very considerable variations.

Mr. Millan: The point is that it averaged out at 7 per cent., which was in accordance with the norm. The Scottish proposals averaged out, on the employers' and unions' figures, and we thought that they were rather higher, at between 5½ per cent. and 6 per cent. and was conceived of as a separate claim lasting for one year. It was an entirely different claim, and there is no serious dispute about this. The figures, if published, would demonstrate this.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: The Minister is talking in terms of percentages. Can he tell us the total sum involved?

Mr. Millan: I am unable to give the exact sum, but if my hon. Friend wants this no doubt it can be given by my right hon. Friend at the end of the debate. I am making the point that the Scottish and English settlements were not by any means the same.
It has also been argued that this does not matter very much, because in the past claims have been made at the same kind of level between England and Scotland That is not true at all, as anyone who cares to look at the figures will see. For example, when the employers' side of the National Joint Industrial Council sent up, on 27th May, and later on 17th June, their arguments substantiating the proposals that it was then putting forward, it quoted figures for the movement of local government salaries between 1962 and 1965. These are not my figures, but they are interesting.
For English local government employees the increases between these years varied from 9·1 per cent. to 13·5 per cent., but in Scotland the equivalent increases varied between 11·4 per cent. and 18 per cent.—substantially more. Therefore within these years the Scottish employees had


not received the same increases as the English, but had received rather larger increases.
These are the figures from the N.J.I.C. and are not something which I have selected to support the Government's case. Another argument which has been used is: why should we have separate Scottish and English negotiations at all? Why not have United Kingdom negotiations? N.A.L.G.O. has claimed in a recent circular, which I think has been sent to every hon. Member, that it has been trying to obtain this, but that the employers have been recalcitrant. It is not for me to intervene and apportion blame. if there is blame, between one side and the other. However, if it is true that the Scottish employers have resisted this, then it is too much for them now to complain —and this is very relevant to what the right hon. Gentleman was saying about motions passed by Scottish local authorities—and criticise the Government for something over which the Government have had absolutely no control.
The important thing about this is that the Government are not involved in any way. It was not our decision that there should be separate negotiations. We are not a party to N.J.I.C., we are not represented there. These are questions which must be decided between the unions, and not just N.A.L.G.O. incidentally, because there are others involved, and the employers. If they have got themselves into this position it has nothing at all to do with the Government.

Mr. Noble: Even if the hon. Gentleman is right, it is quite unfair to blame Glasgow and Aberdeen, who had no possible knowledge that 20th July would be the key date. Their feelings are therefore justified.

Mr. Millan: That has absolutely nothing to do with the point that I was making, because N.A.L.G.O. made these attempts, according to the information circulated, in 1964, when incidentally the right hon. Gentleman was Secretary of State for Scotland. He did nothing about that then, and I do not blame him for it, because the Government are not involved.

Mr. J. Bruce-Gardyne: rose—

Mr. Millan: I will not give way.
I want to make another point about this question of separate English and Scottish negotiations. It is all very well for people in Scotland to insist that they should have separate negotiations, or to insist that Scotland should be separately considered, or have separate considerations taken into account. I do not object to that in the least, but it is not possible to do that, on the one hand, and be perfectly happy when one gets either the same as the English, or something better, and then to start moaning and groaning when one comes out in a certain instance somewhat less satisfactory than people south of the Border. If people insist on having separate negotiations, and this is not a matter for the Government but the unions and employers, they have to take, to some extent, the rough with the smooth.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: rose—

Mr. Millan: I will give way in a moment, if the hon. Gentleman has a valid point, which I doubt very much.
It has been argued, and the right hon. Gentleman mentioned this briefly, that the difference between the English and Scottish scales represents a gross anomaly, which ought to be dealt with on that basis, in accordance with the White Paper. The White Paper is very narrowly drawn on this point. The kind of case which is meant to come under this heading is that for example of the colliery overmen and deputies, when there were large groups of men working side by side, one group with a salary increase, and the other without.
This does not apply in the case of the Scottish local government workers, because they are not working side by side with their English colleagues, in the same offices doing the same job. The salary scales in the past have been entirely different, and this has absolutely nothing at all to do with the Government's prices and incomes policy. There has been a good deal of loose talk, and again this is relevant to the White Paper, about large numbers of Scottish local authority workers moving south because of this comparatively small discrepancy in salaries, for a limited period of time. I do not believe that for a minute. I have never heard such exaggerated nonsense as some of the claims made about large droves of people moving South


from the town halls in Scotland on this issue. We know that there are shortages of local authority staff in Scotland. There have been for many years. This is not something which has happened within the last year and not something which arises from the Government's prices and incomes policy.
I do not believe that we could possibly justify making an exception here on the basis of the distribution of manpower, which is one of the things which has been argued in terms of the White Paper.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He tried to argue that the Government had nothing to do with the fact that there were separate negotiations in England and Scotland. Is he not aware that in 1964 representatives of N.A.L.G.O. saw his right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour and asked for his support in getting a common negotiation and that they were turned down?

Mr. Millan: That was in February 1964. My right hon. Friend was not in the Government then. The right hon. Member for Argyll was Secretary of State for Scotland at that time. It was because those representatives got no change from the right hon. Gentleman that they had to approach members of the then Opposition.
The other charge which has been made —and the right hon. Gentleman was very muted on this matter—is that there has been some kind of special discrimination against Scotsmen almost because they are Scotsmen. This is not only the most absurd argument but easily the nastiest argument we have heard. I want to make it absolutely clear that the local government workers in Scotland have been treated on exactly the same basis as other workers in similar circumstances—I shall give chapter and verse for that—and the fact that they were Scotsmen had nothing at all to do with it.
There have been a number of cases recently when Scottish workers have managed to get ahead of their colleagues in England—for example, argricultural workers, although I do not imagine that that brought very much joy to the farmers on the benches opposite. This applies also to the plumbers and bakers. I could quote a number of other examples. It is very easy to give examples in which

Scotland seemed apparently to be falling behind and to forget the other instances in which Scottish workers have gone ahead.
I pointed out that between 1962 and 1965 the percentage increases for local government workers in Scotland were greater than the percentage increases South of the Border.

Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith (Glasgow, Hillhead): rose—

Mr. Millan: No.
N.A.L.G.O. workers have been treated in exactly the same way as other workers in similar circumstances. Of course, there are hard cases. The Government have never pretended for a minute that this policy could be operated without there being hard cases. But the N.A.L.G.O. workers have been treated in exactly the same way as, for example, firemen and National Health Service ancillary staffs in the public sector—that is, Scottish and English—and in the private sector they have been treated in exactly the same way as large groups of workers such as those in retail co-operative societies, food manufacturing and the retail grocery trades. But we have not had Motions of censure from the Opposition about the firemen and National Health Service ancillary staffs. We have heard nothing about the workers in co-operative establishments. We have heard nothing about any of these workers.
This is quite an historic occasion. This is the first occasion on which the Conservative Opposition have posed as defenders of workers in any sense at all. Why is this? Let me come to the Government's Amendment. Why are right hon. and hon. Members opposite getting so excited about N.A.L.G.O.? They do not give a damn about the N.A.L.G.O. workers. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I do not believe for one minute that they are the slightest bit concerned about the N.A.L.G.O. workers.
We all know why this Motion has been tabled. It has nothing to do with the local government staffs or the prices and incomes freeze. There is a very simple reason for it—and we need not be mealymouthed about it. It is because there is a crucial by-election going on in Scotland at the present time.

Mr. Noble: rose—

Mr. Millan: I will not give way.
In 1959 the Conservative Party lost three seats in Scotland. In 1964 it lost five seats. In 1966 it lost four seats. It lost others in by-elections in between.

Mr. Galbraith: On a point of order. The hon. Gentleman has refused to give way on several occasions, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it not true to say that what he is now saying has absolutely nothing to do with N.A.L.G.O. in Scotland and is therefore out of order?

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Eric Fletcher): I seem to have heard remarks like this across the Floor of the House for many years past.

Mr. Millan: What I am saying has everything to do with the Motion. The hon. Gentleman does not like it. He is one of the few—

Mr. Noble: I like it, if the hon. Gentleman would give way.

Mr. Millan: Very well.

Mr. Noble: I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for at last giving way. Has it occurred to him that this debate is taking place because on 16th February the Leader of the House—and I read what he said to the House—refused to give us an earlier debate? That was before the Pollok by-election was even thought of.

Mr. Millan: The right hon. Gentleman is niggling now. He knows very well why this Motion was tabled and the circumstances in which it was tabled.
The Conservative Party, politically speaking, is a joke in Scotland. It is completely discredited. It is bereft of all principle and of all ideas. It has been rejected time and time again by the Scottish electors. This Motion is a blatant attempt to make party capital out of a serious issue. It is a blatant attempt to curry favour with the electors of Scotland. It has been rejected before, and I know that it will be rejected again with contempt, and the House will reject its Motion with the same contempt.

5.27 p.m.

Mr. N. R. Wylie (Edinburgh, Pentlands): The speech to which we have just listened was one of the most disgraceful I have ever heard in the House. I am not usually in the habit of making

statements of that kind. I also think that it was a most blatant example of special pleading on the part of the Government which reveals how sensitive they are about the position in which they find themselves concerning local government staffs. When a Government has to fall back on the kind of technical arguments which the Under-Secretary of State had to fall back on, there is something wrong somewhere. His was not the kind of speech which will impress the people of Scotland or the local government staffs in Scotland one little bit.
Let me go over some of the points which the hon. Gentleman made. I will endeavour to be as quick as I can because I know that many hon. Members wish to take part in the debate. The hon. Gentleman said that there is a basic distinction between the structure of the salary scales in Scotland and in England. I do not know in what detail there are variations. I dare say that there are bound to be variations. But, by and large, all our information is that the settlement reached in September 1966 was to put local government staff in Scotland more or less into the same position as local government staff in England, and it was because the earlier request which N.A.L.G.O. made in Scotland took them, in the eyes of the Department of Economic Affairs, beyond the position in England and beyond the norm that the initial application was rejected.
It is said that paragraph 30 of the White Paper Cmnd. 3150 was narrowly drawn and was not really designed to meet this situation. What the paragraph says is:
… pay increases will not in general be regarded as justified during the period of severe restraint on the grounds of comparison with the level of remuneration for similar work or on the grounds of narrowing of differentials".
It goes on to say:
There may be exceptional circumstances in which some immediate improvement in pay is imperative to correct a gross anomaly.
If this is not a gross anomaly, I do not know what is. Here we have 10 per cent. of the local government staffs of the United Kingdom being treated on an entirely different basis from 90 per cent. who happen to be in England and Wales.
These people are doing exactly the same kind of work. A town clerk in


Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee or Aberdeen is doing precisely the same kind of work as a town clerk in any other part of the country.

Mr. Ross: They are not covered by this.

Mr. Wylie: The right hon. Gentleman tells me that they are not covered and that I am wrong. I apologise. That is the kind of technical argument with which we are confronted.
Let us forget about town clerks. Sanitary inspectors do the same kind of work in England as they do in Scotland. My information is that a qualified sanitary inspector on the maximum grade in England is getting £1,665 a year, whereas his contemporary in Scotland gets only £1,330. This is the kind of small discrepancy that the Under-Secretary told us all the fuss was about. If we do not do something to bring those salary scales into line with the 90 per cent. of salary scales in the United Kingdom, the position of local government staffs in Scotland will be impossible.
I am certain that I am on sound ground in saying that nearly all local government staffs in Scotland are under-staffed. In many cases they are running at about 33⅓ per cent. of their establishment. That is not a situation which can be allowed to continue. I know also that in many cases they are up to that level of establishment only because they rely on the services of elderly or older staffs who will shortly retire. Although one does not want to anticipate a later debate this evening, the drain of local government staffs from Scotland into England is something about which we must think seriously. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble) has said, unless something is done on this issue—and something could be done—the problem will become acute.
Surely there is an outlet for the Government. One recognises the difficulty if one attempts to put the economy into a straitjacket and somebody who comes along just after 20th July fails to get something which somebody who came just before that date succeeds in getting. This is not in any way comparable with the position of firemen, or National Health staffs. As far as I know, although
I am subject to correction, firemen in

England do not get one scale and firemen in Scotland get another. As far as I know, National Health staffs in England are not on one scale and National Health staffs in Scotland on another scale because of the effects of 20th July. If that were the case, these would be proper analogies to make.
There is no comparison in this situation between local government staffs, on the one hand, and firemen and National Health staffs, on the other hand. I understand that none of these categories have got their increases, because both English and Scotland claims came after 20th July. The comparison, therefore, is not a proper one to make.
I implore the Government, not for selfish political reasons or anything like that, to see whether it is not possible to find a way out of this difficulty, perhaps by invoking the provisions of paragraph 30. I am sure that the Secretary of State, with the influence which we would all like to think that he had in the Cabinet, could succeed in inducing his right hon. Friends to operate paragraph 30 and get something done in the interest of the people of Scotland.

5.34 p.m.

Mr. Thomas Steele: I would not like to comment on the speech of the right hon. Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble), because my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary dealt with it most effectively. I would say to my hon. Friend that I feel like the man who married the widow with eleven children: I have nothing to add. My hon. Friend's speech was most effective and he is to be complimented on it.
The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh, Pentlands (Mr. Wylie) dealt purely with the question of discrimination. He did not deal with the question of the economy or with dates or technicalities, as his right hon. Friend the Member for Argyll had done. He dealt purely with the question of discrimination.
I can understand the Opposition taking advantage of this opportunity to berate the Government. When a Government are having difficulties and problems, one does not blame the Opposition for taking the opportunity to discuss them. When we on this side were in Opposition, we did exactly the same. Therefore, I


have no criticism of the Opposition in doing this, but they made a very poor job of their attempt.
I am disappointed that my hon. Friends have put down the Amendment, because it seems to me that they are trying to get the best of both worlds. I can understand my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes). He has been against every Government which has been in power since I first came to the House of Commons. That is his natural attitude. My hon. Friend the Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. W. Baxter) is following in his footsteps.
Others of my hon. Friends, however, who have put their names to the Amendment are trying to get the best of both worlds. On 20th July, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced the policy that had to be pursued. On 26th and 27th July, we debated that policy in the House of Commons and it was supported by hon. Members on this side, including my hon. Friends the Members for South Ayrshire and West Stirlingshire, my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel) and others. They all supported the policy outlined by the Prime Minister on 20th July.
Then we had Part IV of the Prices and Incomes Bill, which was also supported by some of my hon. Friends. I am, therefore, surprised that they are prepared, in effect, to support the Government in the policy which they have announced but are not prepared to support its implementation.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Does my hon. Friend always support the Government?

Mr. Steele: Yes, I usually support the Government. I never try to get the best of both worlds. I do not support the Government in their general policy and then refuse to support them when that policy is implemented.
Naturally, I am not unsympathetic towards the claim. When this decision was announced, my hon. Friends the Members for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) and Aberdeen, South (Mr. Dewar) and I visited my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and put to him what, we thought, were the fears of the N.A.L.G.O. officers in Scotland. We were anxious to be assured that in

the decision of the Government on this matter there should be no unfairness and no discrimination and that the decision was made in line with the policy laid down by the Government. We discussed this matter with my right hon. Friend on 30th January. To my satisfaction, we got assurances that the decision was neither unfair nor showed discrimination and that it was in line with the policy laid down.
Those people who do not accept the general policy of the Government naturally can argue in many other ways. But those of us who accepted this policy on 20th July and are prepared to support it now have asked anyone who opposes it to give us evidence of any other group of workers being treated differently from the Scottish members of N.A.L.G.O. So far, we have had no evidence to that effect.
Something has been said about the timing. I was interested to note that, in his speech, the right hon. Gentleman did not accuse D.E.A. or the Scottish Office of delays in negotiations. However, arguments have been put forward, there have been letters in the Press and letters which I have received, inferring that the cause of the difficulties was the delay either in the Scottish Office or at D.E.A.
When my hon. Friend and I went to see the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, we armed ourselves with the case of the National and Local Government Officers Association which we obtained from the headquarters of that Association. In addition, we had other documents from Mr. Anderson, who is the General Secretary of N.A.L.G.O. We based our arguments on its case to ensure that no discrimination should take place. That document states quite clearly:
For the last 12 months, the Joint Industrial Council has been reviewing its salaries agreement, but timed its negotiations thereon so that both the Employers Side and the Staff Side should be aware of the position reached in the negotiations then also proceeding in the National Joint Council for England and Wales. This was done in order to ensure that any agreement ultimately reached had a close link with that reached in the National Joint Council. This, of course, meant that of necessity each stage of the negotiations in Scotland had to take place after the comparable stage of the negotiations in England and Wales.
In that document, it is made quite clear that no settlement in Scotland could


have taken place until after 13th July. It goes on:
This conforms to the traditional and historical approach, whereby over the last 20 years agreements have first been reached in the English Council followed closely after by agreements in the Joint Industrial Council for Scotland.
It is quite clear that the Association is not prepared to apportion any blame to D.E.A. or the Scottish Office, and any accusation of delay is quite nonsensical. The Association has accepted responsibility, and its argument to D.E.A. in the first instance was one which said, "This has been done for England. Please do it for Scottish members as well." That is an admission that an agreement was not possible before 13th July.
We have to make up our minds whether we accept the need for a deadline. Hon. Members opposite do not agree with the policy and, therefore, are against the whole thing. Those like myself who accept the policy have to accept the necessity for a deadline, and that deadline was 20th July of last year.
Quite recently, I had a joint meeting with representatives from the two constituencies of Dunbartonshire, East and Dunbartonshire, West. Many of the Government's critics within our own movement were arguing about the difficulties of Health Service employees, a group of workers which has been mentioned already today, and it was said that they were angry because they have had to have a standstill of nine months. That applies to England as well as to Scotland, but they felt that, as they are some of the lowest paid workers in the country, they have a grievance.
All that I could do was, first of all, to indicate the necessity for it, and I substantiated my argument on the ground that the deadline applied to everyone, with no exception. If I had said that the deadline was to apply to everyone who was not a member of N.A.L.G.O., clearly they would not have been prepared to accept the policy.

Mr. Brewis: While we all agree that there must be a deadline, surely there has been a failure on the part of the Secretary of State for Scotland to ensure that an exception was made for equivalent people in Scotland so that they could

have exactly the same rise as their opposite numbers in England had received. He must have known that the dates of awards often were two months apart; yet nothing was done about it.

Mr. Steele: The hon. Gentleman admits that we must have a deadline, but he is saying that those who fall on the wrong side of it should be treated as exceptional cases. [Interruption.] That is exactly what he is saying. If the hon. Gentleman had not interrupted me, I was going on to admit that, wherever a deadline is selected, there are bound to be people who think that it is unfair.
From my own experience in the Ministry of National Insurance, I can say that there was trouble every day about this conception of a deadline. The decision whether a man was 59 years and 11 months or 60 applied in all cases. Immediately a deadline is decided upon, some people will fall on one side of it and some people on the other, and, if there is any discrimination, clearly it is against those who fall on the wrong side. However, to argue for an exception in the case of members of N.A.L.G.O. is to destroy the whole basis of the policy.
The hon and learned Member for Edinburgh, Pentlands dealt wholly with discrimination. His argument was that, in effect, officers in Scotland had been treated differently from those in England and Wales. However, it is interesting to note that, in the official documents which we have received, the Association did not use the word "discrimination". It used the word "unfair".
I am prepared to accept that there is bound to be a sense of unfairness. But, if there is discrimination, that discrimination has existed for the last 20 years. It is clear that the Scottish officers have always had to wait six weeks or three months before getting an increase which has been granted in England. They have always had to wait until some time after their English colleagues have had it. Therefore, the discrimination has existed for 20 years, and people in Scotland have suffered as a consequence.

Mr. Russell Johnston (Inverness): Is the hon. Gentleman satisfied that this discrimination should continue?

Mr. Steele: In all my arguments I have always indicated that we ought not to


have any separation of the economic development of Scotland and England, and that applies in the sphere of trade unions as much as anywhere else. I am the official candidate of a trade union which would never agree to separate negotiations for Scotland and England. We used to have separate negotiations for the miners. The nationalisation of the mines stopped that. We have separate negotiations for the farm workers. In the main, Scottish farm workers get their increases about six months later than their English colleagues.
For a time I looked after the interests of the Scottish probation officers. Their argument was that they were treated separately and were not given the same salaries and conditions as their colleagues in England. This was because of N.A.L.G.O., who objected—the very people for whom we are supposed to be fighting today. The Scottish probation officers had to be members of N.A.L.G.O. Their salaries and conditions were organised and negotiated by N.A.L.G.O., who was not prepared to allow Scottish probation officers to negotiate through the national organisation for probation officers.

Mr. Noble: A little earlier the Under-Secretary of State said that N.A.L.G.O. was quite keen to have joint negotiations and that it was the employers who stopped it. Is that a different point?

Mr. Steele: I am sorry if I have misled the House. I was not dealing with the situation of N.A.L.G.O. wanting to have negotiations with local authorities; I was dealing only with the Scottish probation officers. They had to be members of N.A.L.G.O., and N.A.L.G.O. was not prepared to agree to allow the Scottish probation officers to have their agreements and conditions of pay negotiated by the national body.
I would have liked to quote in more detail the cases referred to briefly by my hon. Friend showing that certain Scottish workers have benefited as compared with their English colleagues, in that their increases are now in operation whereas they are not in operation for the English workers. Plumbers are an example. I understand why the Opposition have put down the Motion. I appreciate their argument, but I say to my hon. Friends who intend to support the Opposition

Motion that I hope they will have second thoughts; otherwise it will be clear that although they are prepared to support the Government in their general policy they have not the courage or the guts to support the implementation of that policy.

5.53 p.m.

Sir Fitzroy Maclean: I will refrain from commenting on the lecture which the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, West (Mr. Steele) has just delivered to his hon. Friends on the question of Parliamentary ethics; it must be encouraging for the Government to find somebody of his stature who supports them wholeheartedly on something. Nor shall I take up time by going over ground which has already been adequately covered by my hon. Friends.
We generally agree that an injustice has been done. Because of the Government's decision about 20,000 local government officers in Scotland are to be paid at markedly lower rates than their 200,000 opposite numbers in England and Wales for doing the same jobs. If that is not unfair discrimination against Scotland I do not know what is. I do not impute that; I state it as a fact. If the Under-Secretary or his right hon. Friend takes the line that this manifest injustice is simply a normal result of the arbitrary deadline imposed by the Government's wage freeze—as the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, West suggested—my answer is that it was the intervention of the Department of Economic Affairs on 7th May and its insistence that a Scottish settlement must follow the lines of the English settlement which was responsible for delaying negotiations beyond the start of the freeze.
Particularly illustrative and characteristic of the Government's attitude to Scotland was the remark of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster that it is nothing new for Scotland to have to wait for two months. We had the same comment from the Under-Secretary. We did not need the hon. Gentleman to tell us that. We are now concerned with the question how to right the wrong that almost all of us agree has been done. Even the Secretary of State must have some glimmering of an idea that all is not well. It is just that he is not prepared to risk a show-down with his English colleagues.


I am proud to have in my constituency Rothesay Town Council, which has had the courage to force the Government's hand on this issue by deciding to fulfil its moral obligation towards its employees by giving them the pay increase which we all agree is due to them. The interesting thing about the council's decision is that it is not only courageous and morally right; it is absolutely legal. The Secretary of State may huff and puff—and he has done both—but he has no authority to stop the local authority. Under Parts I, II and III of the Act the Government's powers are purely exhortatory. The sting of this piece of legislation lies in the tail, or near the tail—in Part IV. If the Government want to invoke Part IV they must do so by means of an Order, for which they must get Parliamentary approval within 28 days. Until they have got that, Rothesay Town Council's action will remain quite legal.
I hope that in the face of the arguments advanced today the Secretary of State will not be foolish or unjust enough to invoke Part IV. When the Government got into a mess over Malta and the Maltese began to bring pressure to bear on them they had to climb down. It was not a very dignified performance —the Minister without Portfolio was made to look rather a fool, but he must be accustomed to that by now—but at least it was better than a head-on clash, which would have found the Government both at a disadvantage and in the wrong.
I cannot help feeling that the Secretary of State would be well advised to do the same over Bute. He might even like to send the Minister without Portfolio as a peace emissary, because the Rothesay Town Council is not letting itself be summoned to St. Andrew's House.

Mr. Edward M. Taylor (Glasgow, Cathcart): Is my hon. Friend aware that Rothesay Town Council is not alone? I have received a message saying that the Aberdeen Corporation Finance Committee has decided to pay its N.A.L.G.O. staff on 16th March. This decision has still to be ratified by the Corporation, but Rothesay is no longer alone.

Sir F. Maclean: That is very courageous on the part of yet another local

authority. If the Government want to take it out on Rothesay and any other local authority which may follow her example—if they want to punish these councils for their actions—they will have to introduce an Order. That will provide not only my hon. Friends and I but hon. Members opposite with a chance to show where they stand. The hon. Member for Paisley (Mr. John Robertson) has said, with commendable forthrightness, that every Scottish Member of Parliament will back N.A.L.G.O's cause. I can think of one or two who will not, but the hon. Member was certainly speaking for this side of the House. Was he really speaking for his hon. Friends, or will they—in the words of one of them —allow themselves to be treated as unthinking lobby fodder and blindly obey a three-line Whip? By the way, where are they? Many of them have been absent. Perhaps they are ashamed to show themselves.
A couple of days ago, five or six dozen hon. Gentlemen opposite managed to follow the dictates of their consciences over defence. I did not agree with them, but I admired their independence of spirit. I would end by asking, why should they not do the same on yet another question of principle?

6.0 p.m.

Mr. A. Woodburn: The former Secretary of State who opened this debate—

Mr. Emrys Hughes: On a point of order. May I draw your attention, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to the fact that there is a body of opinion on this side of the House who do not quite agree with the Government on this question? Is it not the custom that a minority, and an influential minority, should be allowed to have a say?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: All hon. Members, I hope, will have an opportunity of putting their point of view.

Mr. Woodburn: I recognise that some people on this side ally themselves with the Tories in attacking the Government and that is normal in our political affairs.
The former Secretary of State for Scotland, in opening the debate, apologised almost in such terms as to justify the Prime Minister's Amendment, so effectively, moved by my hon. Friend. I


am sure that it must be a unique occasion for the two hon. Members for Ayr to be embracing and supporting each other in an attack on the Government. So we are being entertained by variety at least.
Everybody agrees that it is unfortunate that N.A.L.G.O. fell on the wrong side of the date-line, but if hon. Members opposite are to use that argument, they will find that it applies to old-age pensioners and soldiers who missed their pension by a day. In all walks of life, somebody suffers when a line is drawn. This is a principle. It is disgraceful that the Conservative Opposition should exploit a difficulty of this kind for their own political ends. The hon. Member for Bute and North Ayrshire (Sir F. Maclean) did it so blatantly and openly as to prove the necessity for the Prime Minister's Amendment.
This is contrary to the desire of N.A.L.G.O. The letter from N.A.L.G.O. deplores the use of its dispute by the Conservatives for political expediency—

Mr. Noble: That is a total travesty of what N.A.L.G.O. said. It said that this debate should not be used for political purposes. An hon. Gentleman opposite accused me of being mute in my attack on his right hon. Friend. I could have made the attack 40 times as strong and been party political, but I chose not to.

Mr. Woodburn: I took it that it was as a result of the N.A.L.G.O. letter that the right hon. Gentleman was so apologetic for this Motion, and I gave him credit for that, because it showed that his conscience at least was active.
It is unfortunate that the Scots are paid less than their colleagues in England, but it is no good blaming the Government for this. For 100 years under Tory rule the Scots were always paid less than the English, because wherever the employers had Home Rule in paying their employees they paid them less. It is only since a Labour Government introduced the National Health Service that Scottish workers have begun to come up to the English level of payment. This case of N.A.L.G.O. is not unique. In almost every case where Scottish employers have Home Rule in paying their workers, they either pay them less or pay them later at the same rate as in England.
This is why the unions—the A.E.U., the N.U.R., the T.G.W.U. and the miners —would fight to the death against Home Rule in the decision of their wages. This is what we are suffering at the moment, and it is what N.A.L.G.O. is suffering. It is not the Government who are guilty. If any guilty men are involved in this, it is the Scottish employers of N.A.L.G.O. who refuse to have national negotiations and pay the same rates at the same time as in England.
I have had some experience of this. The first job which I had as Secretary of State was to preside over a meeting to decide how the firemen's wages were to be negotiated. They were to be handed back to the local authorities. The fire brigade officers and the firemen wanted national negotiations on a British scale. The Scottish local authorities, represented by Sir Andrew Murray, wanted wages decided in Scotland.
I put certain questions to him to clear up the reason for this. Did the Scottish local authorities want to pay the firemen more? That aroused great laughter at the meeting, because everyone knew that that was the last thing they wanted I asked whether they wanted to pay the firemen less. They did not admit that, although it was nearer the truth. Did they want to pay them the same? If so, would they do it at the same time or six months later? If they were to pay them the same, who would conduct the negotiations—the English representatives? Then, as the right hon. Gentleman said, the Scots would follow the English after the latter had conducted the negotiations.
I believe that the Scots are entitled to as much as the English get. They are entitled to be in at the negotiations when these wages are settled and not six months later. When the National Health Service was established, its wages and salaries were settled by the Whitley Council. In some cases in Scotland, we had to double the salaries of people working in hospitals, because Scotland ran all these things on the cheap and the Scots were paid far less than the English. It would have been impossible for us to agree that people working in the National Health Service in Scotland should get less than those who were working in England.
I know that this applies to N.A.L.G.O. too, but the people who prevented


N.A.L.G.O. from having the right to national negotiations are the guilty men in this case and not the Secretary of State—

Mr. William Baxter: Would my right hon. Friend not concede that this is not N.A.L.G.O.'s responsibility, because N.A.L.G.O. wanted to come into the national negotiating body, but that it was the local authorities which were diametrically opposed to that? So why not give it some consideration, rather than, as my right hon. Friend is doing, condemning it? It was not N.A.L.G.O.'s fault.

Mr. Woodburn: My hon. Friend could not have been listening. That is what I said—that the local authorities are the guilty men for refusing to grant N.A.L.G.O. the right to national negotiations. [Interruption.] That is what I have just said. Do I need to say it again? It is clear that the N.A.L.G.O. people wanted this on a national basis. They want British negotiation, and I hope that they will redouble their efforts and that nobody at this time will stop them from getting these national negotiations which they want.
Nevertheless, it does not make any sense to pay more in Scotland than in England. If any way can be found out of this within the rules and the principles, I should certainly be very glad. The Government's difficulty is that if the principle of the date-line is departed from it will open the floodgates, which might bring complete destruction to the whole incomes and prices policy. If that were to happen—the right hon. Gentleman laughs, but if that were to happen and our money in this country were devalued, instead of suffering the small handicap which they are suffering at the moment, they might find that prices were going up and that they were getting 25 per cent. less in their wages than they are getting now—

Mr. Noble: But does not the right hon. Gentleman remember, from when he was Secretary of State, that there were ways and means of getting around the rules?

Mr. Woodburn: If there are ways and means of getting round the principle to which I have referred, then nobody would be more pleased than I. However, it must be done within that principle and we must consider not only the question of people

who should receive £300 a year more but those who should receive £50 a year extra, because people who are poorer than the N.A.L.G.O. scales have also suffered.
At a meeting of Glasgow Corporation the Treasurer pointed out that it was a question of whether or not the Scottish application fitted in with the rules laid down. He said that one committee of the J.I.C., because of a snag, had not completed an agreement until after 20th July and had thereby suffered the same effects.
There is an even more important issue. If the brake is released on the freeze and the race starts, with everybody demanding increases, there will be a danger of general devaluation. The Government must, therefore, control the brake and the Opposition is showing a sense of irresponsibility by trying to breach this principles because of political pressures.

Mr. Noble: Rubbish.

Mr. Woodburn: I warn hon. Gentlemen opposite that once they begin giving in to these pressures and once they become a pressure-group for any and every wage demand, they will have to take the same action over the teachers and every other section of workers in the community. If they become so pressurised, Parliament will be demoralised, with every wage claim looking for such a group. This would be a disgraceful misuse of Parliamentary procedures, and I hope that, in view of what has happened, the right hon. Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble) feels ashamed of himself.
This matter must be tackled fairly and, as for the suggestion that it can be done on the basis of a gentleman's agreement, we should remember that not every man is a gentleman and that someone is likely to break such an agreement. I hope that the Government will stand firm, because the idea of anyone trying to control the Clive Jenkins of this world when it comes to wage demands is farcical. I hope that some way may be found to solve this problem, without opening the floodgates, because if those gates are opened any hope we may have of having a healthy and stable economy will be destroyed.

6.12 p.m.

Mr. James Davidson: I hope that my hon. Friends on the Liberal Bench will oppose the Government and support the Opposition


Motion. I express this hope for three main reasons. The first is the apparent discrimination which exists. I am not saying that the Government intend to discriminate, but the discrimination is apparent.
The second is because the Government's action has caused this delay which is obvious from a study of the dates. It was under the early warning system introduced by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite that it was necessary for proposals to be submitted. These proposals were submitted on 27th May and, at the same time, a request for a reply was made and for a settlement to be reached in late June or early July. The Department of Economic Affairs came back on 8th July, indicating that the whole claim would have to be scaled down. That left very little time indeed for the claim to be resubmitted, and it was due to this that the Scottish N.A.L.G.O. missed the bus.
The third reason is the anomaly in application. It is the type of gross anomaly with which paragraph 30 of the White Paper on the period of severe restraint was supposed to deal. That paragraph provides a loophole through which the Government may honourably find their way out of the difficulty into which they have got themselves, but I fear that they are afraid to use it.
I hope that the Minister will not accuse my hon. Friends and I of trying to exploit national feeling on this matter. After all, he will do us the honour of admitting that anything I say tonight is unlikely to affect the issue that is to be decided in one of Scotland's great cities within a week or two.
The terms of agreement were approved by the Department of Economic Affairs prior to the settlement under the Government's early warning system. I understand that the negotiations opened simultaneously, early in 1966, in Scotland and in England and Wales. An agreement in Scotland depended on conformity with England. This, naturally, ensured a time-lag right from the start. In England and Wales the agreement was to operate from 1st August and was to apply, because of the wage freeze, from 1st February, 1967. It was to operate in Scotland from 16th February and one would have thought that, due to

the wage freeze, it would have applied from 16th March, 1967. In other words, there should have been a six months' delay in each case. In fact, there was a six months' delay for England and a minimum of 10 months' delay for Scotland. If there must be a dateline drawn, then surely it is more usual to draw the line between categories and not directly across them.
I will mention only two or three of the likely effects of this state of affairs. I do not pretend that the result of the N.A.L.G.O. claim in Scotland failing to be implemented before July at the earliest is likely to have a great effect on the drift south. I am not suggesting that thousands of Scottish local government workers will be flocking south to find better jobs in England. However, it will certainly not have any effect in the other direction, particularly since there is a shortage of people in a number of posts in local government in Scotland. We are not likely to attract these urgently needed people to Scotland. For example, in Aberdeen County Council alone there are nine vacant posts in the county engineer's department, 10 in the county surveyors' department, and three in the county architect's department. This shortage must directly affect the building of schools and houses and the construction of roads and so on.
I appreciate that the proposal for single negotiating councils for local government services in England and Wales and in Scotland met with little sympathy from any party. However, that was hardly the fault of N.A.L.G.O. It was the fault of the political parties. Had the Scottish National Joint Industrial Council been informed before 8th July by the Department of Economic Affairs that the proposed one-year agreement should be scaled down to a 3½ per cent. norm, to conform with the English agreement which had then just been concluded, there would have been plently of time in which to conclude that agreement before 20th July. It was due to this delay that it could not be concluded. This is an anomaly which not only could but must be dealt with by the Government under the clause which they were wise enough to insert in the White Paper on the period of severe restraint. That loophole exists. Why do not the Government use it in this case?


If differences of this kind are allowed to take place on this basis, we might as well erect a tariff barrier along the Border and let Scotland enjoy cheaper electricity, beef and whisky.

6.8 p.m.

Mr. John Robertson (Paisley): I have never liked the prices and incomes policy, I do not like it now and I am never likely to like it. I have said this openly and publicly, both inside and outside the House. However, if it is to operate, I object to anyone trying to create a privileged class of people in wage negotiations.
I do not believe that the Opposition, in their strange rôle of the friend of trade unions, have either made a good case or have done N.A.L.G.O. much good. Of one thing we can be certain; immediately a question of wage negotiations is raised in this House, the negotiations stop. This place is a last resort, and this is a matter about which I warned N.A.L.G.O.

Mr. Bruce Gardyne: Would not the hon Gentleman agree that the negotiations had stopped once before?

Mr Robertson: I would not agree. It was N.A.L.G.O.'s mistake. The hon. Gentleman should realise that there was still room for negotiations to continue with the Government and the Department of Economic Affairs. The union should have done that before going into its campaign.
I am glad that the right hon. Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble) and the hon. Member for Bute and North Ayrshire (Sir F. Maclean) have been paying attention to my speeches. I hope that they continue to do so. It is a pity that the quotation which was made was not the full quotation. My actual words at the meeting were that, if the facts given by the member of the national negotiating committee of N.A.L.G.O. at that meeting were true, and if those facts were sent to Scottish Members of Parliament, I was certain that every Scottish Member of Parliament would support N.A.L.G.O. I say that now.

Sir F. Maclean: Is the hon. Gentleman saying that the facts were not true?

Mr. Robertson: I made it quite clear that I was giving the correct quotation. That is what I said to that meet-

ing. I pointed out to the reporter that even he in his report did not seem certain of all the facts. Afterwards, I interrogated him. For 17 or 18 years I was a full-time organiser for a union and previously I had been a shop steward with experience of negotiations. I am accustomed to negotiations and had an idea of what was going on. I was satisfied that the man concerned was speaking the truth. I therefore felt that I had to support N.A.L.G.O.
It is only on this point that I am in disagreement with my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, namely, on the question of the facts. The facts as put forward by the member of N.A.L.G.O.'s National Negotiating Committee are briefly these. It is first relevant to say that in 1963 the English N.J.I.C. had negotiated an agreement to last for three years The Scottish employers would not agree to implement a similar agreement, but preferred annual negotiations during that period of three years. This is important.
In June, 1965, application was made for an increase. The first meeting took place in October, 1965. In March, 1966, an agreement was concluded between both sides of the N.J.I.C. When the agreement was concluded, at the request of the Scottish Development Department representative, the parties withheld signing that agreement.

Mr. Millan: What representative?

Mr. Robertson: I have no idea. I am only stating the facts given to me by N.A.L.G.O. I cannot do more. If my hon. Friend insists, I, too, can make investigations and send him a letter.
A representative of somebody or other from the S.D.D. asked both sides of the N.J.I.C. not to sign the agreement, but to hold off because negotiations were proceeding in England, as their three-year agreement was terminating in August, 1966. The union and the employers' side, not knowing about 20th July, agreed so to do. The negotiations were concluded in England. The information was passed on to the Scottish N.J.I.C., which met and which made an agreement. This agreement was not satisfactory to the S.D.D. or to the Department of Economic Affairs. All this was completed by the middle of June.
I am informed that, with the approval of the Department of Economic Affairs,


the N.J.I.C. had come to an agreement which would, roughly speaking, give a 3½ per cent. increase over two years. [Interruption.] I am only repeating this. Let us get N.A.L.G.O.'s case on the record. Then my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State can give us the Goverment's view of the facts. It is very important that N.A.L.G.O.'s case be stated.
In the middle of June everybody was agreed on the arrangement which had been come to. A date had been fixed for both sides of the N.J.I.C. to meet in St. Andrew's House three or four days—a few days; I had better not be too accurate—prior to 20th July. Two days before the meeting was due to take place, the N.A.L.G.O. officials received a telephone message from the S.D.D. saying that it was not possible for that meeting to be held, that it would have to be postponed. Consequently, the meeting which had been arranged prior to 20th July to come to an agreement, to sign an agreement, was postponed, either by the Government or by a representative of the Government. Consequently, when the agreement was finally made, when the new date was fixed, it did not matter whether they met on 21st July or on 30th September: it had the same effect.
This is the point N.A.L.G.O. has made to me. It was through no fault of N.A.L.G.O.'s that this agreement was not finalised prior to 20th July.

Mr. Millan: I do not want to keep on interrupting my hon. Friend, because no doubt my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland will answer. The account my hon. Friend has just given is completely inaccurate. This can be proved by documentary evidence which I have.

Mr. Robertson: I am not arguing whether my statement is accurate or inaccurate. I am stating the facts as given to me by a member of N.A.L.G.O.'s National Negotiating Committee. It is very important that this be said, because this was the report given at the meeting in Paisley. My comment on the report was that, if these were the facts, I and every other Scottish M.P. would be in support of N.A.L.G.O. I do not think that any of my hon. Friends would dis-

agree with me there. That is still my stand.
I will leave it with my right hon. Friend. He can tell us whether these are the facts. I do not know. Whatever the facts are, N.A.L.G.O. wants to get down to it and decide for itself, because I have five letters on my desk, all contradictory one of the other. Therefore, even different officers of N.A.L.G.O. cannot agree among themselves about what are the facts.
I repeat that the report of which I have told the House I have got in writing upstairs in my desk from the person who made the report. He is a member of N.A.L.G.O.'s National Negotiating Committee. That is fair enough.
I should have been more impressed by the attitude of the right hon. Member for Argyll, of the hon. Members for Bute and North Ayrshire, and Aberdeen, West (Mr. James Davidson), and of the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh, Pentlands (Mr. Wylie) if they had, between the time of this becoming news and now, or even at some previous time, gone to the local authorities and said how wrong it was that they should perpetuate these dual negotiations. I belong to a union which has had to do this. The wages of craftsmen employed by local authorities are negotiated by the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions, to which my union is federated. We have not been able to get national negotiations on behalf of craftsmen employed by local authorities. Scottish local authorities have never been prepared to move.
I can tell the House—I put this particularly to hon. Members opposite—that I have never met worse employers than Scottish local authorities. The only word they ever know is, "No". It is impossible to negotiate with them. They take far too long. They can never make up their mind, and they always want to pay less than anyone else. They should not come into such affairs as this and accuse anyone of being responsible for what has occurred.
N.A.L.G.O. must bear some blame itself. If it had been doing the right thing, it would have brought this matter to a head long ago. It should have taken action to bring national negotiations about.


I do not wonder that the Opposition at this time, with a by-election pending, should try to make political capital out of anything they can get their hands on. But I say to them, "For goodness sake leave the field of trade union negotiations alone". If hon. and right hon. Members opposite keep on raising these matters here, not only do they make negotiations impossible but they create a feeling in industry and industrial relations generally, even in N.A.L.G.O.'s sphere, that there will be no trust between the parties. It will be impossible to conduct long negotiations or to arrive at a settlement.
This is not the place where wage negotiations should take place. There never was a more unsuitable place. Hon. and right hon. Members opposite should realise that they do harm to themselves and to everyone else, to the trade unions and to the members of N.A.L.G.O., by doing this sort of thing.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Gordon Campbell.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I have your guidance? Is the debate to end at seven o'clock, and are we about to have the concluding speeches? Those of us who take a view different from that of the Government have not yet had an opportunity to put our case.

Mr. Speaker: I have heard points of view different from that of the Government in this debate.

6.31 p.m.

Mr. Gordon Campbell (Moray and Nairn): We are considering the serious grievance of about 22,000 persons in Scotland who are employed in local government. They feel that they have been outrageously treated. I believe that they have been in touch with every Scottish Member of Parliament about their case. These local government employees have a wide variety of qualifications, and their work is essential in providing services and administration in all forms of local government in Scotland.
There is also a question of principle. The Government have become so hypnotised by their own arbitrary pronouncements that they have allowed this gross anomaly to be perpetrated.
The case of the Scottish local government employees is simple. In relation to England and Wales, over the past five years, equivalent pay increases and equivalent salary standards have been agreed, with dates of operation in Scotland soon after those in England and Wales.
In this round of salary review—there has been no argument about this on either side of the House—Scotland started first, the opening moves being made in 1965. But, in the end, agreement for England and Wales was reached on 13th July, only seven days before 20th July, the date subsequently fixed as the watershed for the standstill. The Scottish agreement on the same lines was not separately concluded formally until after that date.
In answer to the point made by the Under-Secretary of State, I do not argue with him about the nature of the claim which was being put forward for one year, up to 8th July. But it is from 8th July that the Scottish claim followed closely the pattern of the English one, on the advice of the Government. Both these claims, the Scottish and the English, were postponed for six months, but then the English claim was allowed and is now being paid as from 1st February last. The Scottish agreement, instead of being allowed from 16th March, was further postponed indefinitely. No date has been given. All that one now knows is that it will not be before 1st July.
We recently debated the Rate Support Grant Orders for both Scotland and England for the period 1967–68. It is clear from the English Order that the pay increase from 1st February is included in the estimate and is to be covered by the grant. When we asked the Minister of State for Scotland about it, he said that it was not in the grant and that if and when the Scottish claim were allowed, a Rate Support Grant Order would have to come forward.
Under Section 4 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1966, only "unforeseen" increases in remuneration can be covered by such an Order. Therefore, for Scotland this agreement, which has already been reached, is in the category of unforeseen expenditure up to May, 1968, the end of the period in question. In England, on the other hand, the similar settlement has been met and payment is already being made.


It is not surprising that there is resentment and indignation north of the Border. The First Secretary of State should have discerned that this was virtually a single settlement, the determining date being 13th July. Or the Secretary of State for Scotland should have convinced him of this weeks ago.
Let us consider the alternative, if the situation is left as it is. In paragraph 24 of the White Paper on the Period of Severe Restraint, the Government say:
… it would defeat the intention if any attempt were made to make good in subsequent negotiations increases forgone as a result of the standstill and severe restraint".
If this means anything in the present case, it will establish a permanent differential between Scotland and England.
In paragraph 30 of the same White Paper, there is a provision under which the Government could put the situation right:
There may be exceptional circumstances in which some immediate improvement in pay is imperative to correct a gross anomaly".
No doubt, there will be other anomalies, but it is unlikely that the Government will meet so glaring an anomaly as the one with which we are now concerned. What was the object of putting that provision in paragraph 30 of the White Paper if it was not to apply to this situation?
The Government have spoken of groups of people being caught by the date 20th July. The Under-Secretary of State mentioned some, firemen, National Health Service employees, and so on. But the point about these is that the whole group, for England and Scotland, were caught by the date. They just missed 20th July.
In the case we are now considering, however, the Scottish part has been separated. If it had been the whole group, if both Scottish and English local government employees had been caught by the standstill and had missed 20th July, we should not be raising this question as we now are. This is the whole point. It is the unjustifiable separation of English and Welsh local government employees from their Scottish counterparts that is indefensible. Not only the employees are concerned, as has been pointed out. The employers are apparently in complete agreement with them.
I should like to quote from a letter which appeared in The Times today from the Chairman of the Scottish Staff Side of the N.J.I.C. in Scotland. He says:
On this issue there is no difference of opinon between the employers and employees in Scotland and both feel that in all the circumstances the arbitrary drawing of a line at July 20, 1966, is grossly unfair to the staffs concerned, and damaging to the Scottish Local Government Service.
There is another passage in the same letter which I shall mention because the Under-Secretary of State spoke about the structure of salaries being different in England and Wales from that in Scotland. I believe that the letter gives an accurate description of the situation. It says:
… the rates of pay for exactly similar or comparable jobs in Scotland requiring the same professional qualifications …
That is also the case we put. It is that people doing similar jobs are being treated in a different way.
To both employers and employees in Scotland 20th July is a wholly artificial barrier. There will be 7 per cent. more pay in England and Wales in the coming months and the prospect of a permanent differential in the future. That is an unfortunate discouragement to taking up or keeping jobs in Scotland. For the same jobs in England employees will be getting higher pay, and there will be loss of qualified staff who are especially needed in many parts of Scotland, and whom Scotland would otherwise have got or kept.
I now come to another quotation. It is:
Scotland is a proud nation. We are confident of our own abilities, given a chance, the opportunity and the circumstances."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st July, 1964; Vol. 699. c. 299.]
That was said by the present Secretary of State for Scotland, and the words were thought so significant that they were included in the Labour Party election manifesto of 1964 as a quotation of the right hon. Gentleman. "Given the chance, the opportunity and the circumstances." What chance are the local government employees in Scotland being given today? What opportunities are they being given, and what circumstances will be particularly favourable to them? The answer is that it seems that their best opportunities and circumstances are to be provided for them by the Government in England and Wales.
But there is a wider picture. Besides being responsible for this anomaly, the


Secretary of State's actions are giving rise to a general feeling of frustration in Scotland, in turn furnishing increased support for sentiments of nationalism favouring complete separation. These have developed significantly only in the past two years, as the Secretary of State will well know. Of course, there is exasperation with a Government that promotes this kind of anomaly. That is understandable. But separation would be unfortunate because I am certain that Scotland's future importance and prosperity must come from being a vital part of the United Kingdom, while Scotland would have only a minor and somewhat precarious existence as a small country on its own.
I lay the blame for the current nationalist feelings entirely at the Government's door, and the Secretary of State must take a large part of the blame.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Why is the feeling of frustration against the Government so feared by the Conservative movement? Is what the hon. Gentleman called a resurgence of Scottish nationalism not due to a feeling of frustration because both sides have blundered on certain major issues, and the people who are frustrated are not going to the Conservatives?

Mr. Campbell: I have never discerned any fear on the part of myself or my right hon. and hon. Friends on this. What I pointed out is that most of that feeling has come up within the past year, or certainly over the past two years, and if the hon. Gentleman has not noticed it in Scotland he has not been looking around very much. The Secretary of State must take most of the blame.
The Government have put down an Amendment to our Motion. There is nothing in it about the merits of the case. They must be destitute of ideas if they simply put forward an Amendment of that kind. First, it refers to an "unjustified imputation of discrimination against Scotland." After all that has been said today, together with the views expressed by both employers and employees, it cannot be denied that the Government's action has resulted in discrimination. I do not suggest that there was deliberate discrimination, and no hon. Member on this side of the House has suggested that.

But I do say that maladministration and the inadequacy of Scottish Ministers has led to that effect.
The Amendment also imputes to us motives of electoral advantage. That is presumably a reference to the by-election which will shortly take place in Scotland. But we first called attention to the anomaly on 30th January—4½ weeks ago we put a Motion on the Order Paper. We raised the matter about three days later on the Floor of the House in the early hours of 2nd February in the debate on the Consolidated Fund Bill. I started that discussion and no fewer than six of my right hon. and hon. Friends spoke in that debate—all Members for Scottish constituencies. That was more than two weeks before the Writ was issued for the Glasgow, Pollok by-election.
It is interesting to see what the Minister of State—I am glad that he is here— said when he replied in that debate. He said:
So long as this matter is under discussion by Ministers … then it is unreasonable for me to be asked what the outcome will be. Until something has been conceded by Ministers I cannot say more.
That gave us the impression that there were some concessions in the air. It looked as though common sense might prevail.
Then, near the end of his speech, the Minister of State said:
Hon. Members may say that one group of workers has a justifiable claim, …
and he ended by saying:
There is no reason at all why they should not take the first opportunity to raise this at some later time."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st February, 1966; Vol. 740, c. 714–715.]
If that was not an invitation to us to pursue the matter further and see whether Ministers had made a concession, I do not know what it was. We had great difficulty in getting this debate as a result of the Leader of the House telling us that we would be able to speak on the matter in a debate on Scottish affairs, on a day when we could only speak about it very generally. Therefore, for the right hon. Gentleman now to say that we are raising the subject as a matter of political expediency flies in the face of all the facts to which I have just referred.
If the Secretary of State was pressing his colleagues, and if he failed to convince them, why is he still here? Why does he not resign to demonstrate that he stands for what he said in 1964 about


promoting opportunities in Scotland, to demonstrate that he is not prepared to let legitimate Scottish interests be pushed aside? After all, he could always withdraw his resignation later, as the Foreign Secretary has shown can be done. There is no sign that anything like that has happened.
The right hon. Member for East Stirlingshire (Mr. Woodburn) thought that we might be a pressure group for any individual section. Incidentally, he mentioned the Scottish teachers. I remind his that we took up the case of the Scottish teachers and criticised the mishandling of their affairs by the Government. But we are not a pressure group of that kind. If we are a pressure group, it is a pressure group for Scotland.
We are disappointed in the right hon. Gentleman. We are disappointed in his failure to live up to his flamboyant words in the past. Never has a community been so let down as have the Scottish people, by the words uttered by the right hon. Gentleman and his right hon. Friends over two years ago, compared with their lamentable and totally inadequate performance while they have been in office.

6.50 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. William Ross): I never knew a party quite so much out of touch with reality as the Scottish Tories. We have only to look at the Motion. It begins by referring to the
… National and Local Government Officers Association pay award …".
There is no such thing.
Then it refers to the so-called award as being the same as that paid in England and Wales. I wish that the Opposition had discussed it with the trade unions which they are supposed to he supporting today. They would have discovered that this was impossible.
The Opposition has been slipshod all through. I expected a little better from the former Conservative Solicitor-General for Scotland, the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh, Pentlands (Mr. Wylie), but he did not even know who was included in the Order. I must say that what was supposed to be a Motion of censure has become an apology. We have had all the questions, "Why blame us?" and, "Why do you even suggest that we are thinking of the Pollok by-election?".
On 27th February The Times had a leader stating that the Opposition were giving half a day to belabouring the Secretary of State for Scotland—poor "Willie"—for his refusal to allow a negotiated increase to be paid to the employees of local authorities in Scotland. Exactly a week from today, it so happens that there is a by-election at Pollok. The leader added:
It is one of those political coincidences into which only the suspicious will wish to Pry.
Our Amendment is very apposite on that point.

Mr. Galbraith: rose—

Mr. Ross: I am sorry. I am dealing with one point at a time.
The hon. Member for Moray and Nairn (Mr. G. Campbell) said, "Oh, but we raised this weeks ago, on 30th January, and raised it again on the Consolidated Fund Bill." Thanks to the generosity of the Chair, they got away with it.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I think that I rise to a point of order. The right hon. Gentleman must not cast even a general reflection on the Chair.

Mr. Ross: I withdraw any imputation in respect of the Chair, Sir, but I do not think that I want to withdraw the suggestion that the Chair is generous at all times.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it any reflection or. the Chair to accuse it of generosity?

Mr. Speaker: The Secretary of State made that point just before the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) did.

Mr. G. Campbell: Further to that point of order. Could this be clarified? The right hon. Gentleman is wrong again. He has mixed up the Consolidated Fund Bill with the Rate Support Grant Order, on which we tried to raise this issue as well.

Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order.

Mr. Ross: The Opposition tried to raise it on the Rate Support Grant Order and this time the Chair was not generous. They were ruled out of order.

Mr. G. Campbell: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it correct for the right hon. Gentleman to cast that aspersion on the Chair, particularly as, in opening that debate, I was able to say completely everything I had to say and was not ruled out of order?

Mr. Speaker: I think that we had better leave the matter as it is.

Mr. Ross: Right hon. and hon. Members opposite raised the matter in questions about the business of the House. We had headlines in the Scottish Press about something which was supposed to have happened, but which made no contact with what happened in the House. The Opposition raised the issue during the following week and later in letters. I have never known the Conservative Party either inside or outside the House so exercised about any group of workers. I would like to know why. The explanation is purely and simply the fact that there is a by-election shortly and the Opposition are scared of the Nationalists. If I had their record, I would be scared, too.

Mr. Noble: rose—

Mr. Ross: I am sorry, but I have been fair in giving way.
We have had a conspiracy of noise to drown the truth. Dates have been mentioned by the Opposition. The hon. Member for Moray and Nairn got slightly muddled. He talked about both agreements being signed and postponed for six months. But the whole point is that no Scottish agreement was reached and confirmed by the central departments under the system.
I will produce the dates in respect of which my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley (Mr. John Robertson) was assured by an officer of N.A.L.G.O. concerning some actions by the Department of Economic Affairs and the Scottish Development Department. There is not a single word of truth in those suggestions. The facts put to my hon. Friend were quite wrong. For justification, I would refer to what was received from the headquarters of N.A.L.G.O. itself just two days ago.
What happened was that, conscious that they were being later than the English and Welsh, the Scottish employers' side of the National Joint In-

dustrial Council sent a letter to the Scottish Development Board on 27th May last year. They suggested to us the broad changes they were to be considering formally with the employees. This was for the negotiations which started in June. In October, there was a commitment for an increase, without details. But the first indication we got was on 27th May. We should remember that the English and Welsh had started at the beginning of March. The letter said:
There may be further information which you would wish to have and I shall be ready to supply it if you ask.
Paragraph 11 of the accompanying statement read:
The employers take the view that any revision of structure should not be effective in Scotland at a different date from a probable general increase. Although knowing of the English employers readiness"—
mark this—
to embody in their current revision of scales a 7 per cent. increase for a two year period, and the likelihood of its acceptance by the central departments, the Scottish Employers (and perhaps the staff side) would prefer to negotiate changes embodying a general 3½ per cent. and have no two-year agreement.
This is not something I am making up. That is the official letter sent us on 27th May. It suggested that I might want further information. Of course I did. If we had accepted that, there would have been uproar from N.A.L.G.O. Indeed, all the claims of discrimination would probably have been right. But we sought and got the further information, on 17th June. We got the agreement—and I have the documents here with all the changes made in it—and it was not 3½ per cent. but 5½ per cent. to 6 per cent.
I remind the Opposition that I am as concerned as they are now about the time lags. I am as concerned as they are about the detrimental effects upon Scottish local authority services. Thank heavens it is not the right hon. Member for Argyll who is the responsible Minister!
But the fact is that the 5½ per cent. to 6 per cent., even for the one year, was considerably below what was being given in England and Wales and that implies that the employers and the staff were prepared to accept, for a whole year at least, discrimination between Scotland and England. It is pretty bad for them now to come along and say that what


I hope will be a very limited time lag will be disastrous.
It has been suggested that this is all the result of the D.E.A. and the Scottish Office. There has been little or no communication with the D.E.A. during all these negotiations. There has been communication only with the Scottish Office and it was not until the letter which was sent out on, I think, 19th January, in answer to a request from N.A.L.G.O., that there was any communication with the D.E.A. I can assure my hon. Friends that the statement by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of the timetable was absolutely correct. That put into its proper perspective all this noise about dilatoriness and about delay and about maladministration which we have heard over the past three or four weeks.
I am sorry that the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor) did not speak today.

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: So am I.

Mr. Ross: He has played his part in this build-up of what has been made into a nationalist battle. I have seen both sides of the Scottish National Joint Industrial Council which has deplored the element of politics brought into all this, and the noise and so on, and hon. Members opposite must bear their responsibility for it.

It has been admitted that there is rough justice as soon as there is a standstill if there is a deadline, but as soon as one starts to manœuvre that deadline to suit any one section, then more injustice is created than there is in any seeming anomaly which is corrected. The right hon Member for Argyll and the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn fail to appreciate that millions of people are caught in this way—people who have accepted the disciplines required by an incomes policy of a standstill and severe restraint because of the value to the country. The country has done well out of the general support which we have had from the workers and from the salary-earners. Hon. Members opposite have been chipping away at this justice and favouring a section all in the interests of party manœeuvre.

In this we have had nationalism. I, too, read the Scottish Press and I say that the rantings of nationalism which we have heard from hon. Members opposite over the past three years sound strange and insincere in the accents of Eton, Winchester and Wellington.

Question put, That the words proposed to he left out stand part of the Question:—

The House divided: Ayes 221, Noes 276.

Division No. 282.]
AYES
[7.6 p.m.


Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)
Carlisle, Mark
Farr, John


Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)
Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert
Fisher, Nigel


Astor, John
Cary, Sir Robert
Fortescue, Tim


Atkins, Humphrey (M't'n &amp; M'd'n)
Channon, H. P. G.
Foster, Sir John


Awdry, Daniel
Chichester-Clark, R.
Fraser, Rt. Hn. Hugh(St'ftord &amp; Stone)


Baker, W. H. K.
Clark, Henry
Galbraith, Hn. T. G.


Batsford, Brian
Clegg, Walter
Giles, Rear-Adm. Morgan


Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton
Cooke, Robert
Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)


Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)
Corfield, F. V.
Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)


Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos. &amp; Fhm)
Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)
Glover, Sir Douglas


Berry, Hn. Anthony
Crosthwaite-Eyre, Sir Oliver
Glyn, Sir Richard


Biffen, John
Crouch, David
Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B.


Biggs-Davison, John
Crowder, F. P.
Goodhart, Philip


Birch, Rt. Hn. Nigel
Cunningham, Sir Knox
Goodhew, Victor


Black, Sir Cyril
Currie, G. B. H.
Grant, Anthony


Blaker, Peter
Dalkeith,
Earl of Grant-Ferris, R.


Body, Richard
Dance, James
Gresham Cooke, R.


Bossom, Sir Clive
Davidson, James(Aberdeenshire, W.)
Grieve, Percy


Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. John
d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry
Gurden, Harold


Boyle, Rt. Hn. Sir Edward
Dean, Paul (Somerset, N.)
Hall, John (Wycombe)


Braine, Bernard
Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F. (Ashford)
Hall-Davis, A. G. F.


Brewis, John
Dodds-Parker, Douglas
Hamilton, Marquess of (Fermanagh)


Brinton, Sir Tatton
Doughty, Charles
Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)


Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. SirWalter
Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec
Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.)


Bruce-Gardyne, J.
Drayson, G. B.
Harris, Reader (Heston)


Bryan, Paul
du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward
Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)


Buchanan-Smith, Alick(Angus, N&amp;M)
Eden, Sir John
Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere


Buck, Antony (Colchester)
Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)
Harvie Anderson, Miss


Bullus, Sir Eric
Elliott, R. W. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, N.)
Hastings, Stephen


Burden, F. A.
Errington, Sir EriC
Hawkins, Paul


Campbell, Gordon
Evans, Gwyntor (C'marthen)
Hay, John




Heath, Rt. Hn. Edward
Madden, Martin
Roots, William


Heseltine, Michael
Maginnis, John E.
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)


Higgins, Terence L.
Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest
Russell, Sir Ronald


Hiley, Joseph
Marten, Neil
St. John-Stevas, Norman


Hill, J. E. B.
Maude, Angus
Sandys, Rt. Hn. D.


Hirst, Geoffrey
Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.
Scott, Nicholas


Hogg, Rt. Hn. Quintin
Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.
Sharples, Richard


Holland, Philip
Mills, Peter (Torrington)
Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh &amp; Whitby)


Hooson, Emlyn
Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)
Sinclair, Sir George


Hordern, Peter
Miscampbell, Norman
Smith, John


Hornby, Richard
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Stainton, Keith


Howell, David (Guildford)
Monro, Hector
Stodart, Anthony


Hunt, John
Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)
Summers, Sir Spencer


Hutchison, Michael Clark
Morrison, Charles (Devizes)
Tapsell, Peter


Iremonger, T. L.
Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles
Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)


Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Munro-Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Taylor,Edward M.(G'gow,Cathcart)


Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)
Murton, Oscar
Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)


Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)
Neave, Airey
Teeling, Sir William


Johnston, Russell (Inverness)
Nicholls, Sir Harmar
Temple, John M.


Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)
Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael
Tilney, John


Jopling, Michael
Nott, John
Turton, Rt. Hn. R. H.


Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith
Onslow, Cranley
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Kaberry, Sir Donald
Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian
Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hn. Sir John


Kerby, Capt. Henry
Osborn, John (Hallam)
Vickers, Dame Joan


Kershaw, Anthony
Page, John (Harrow, W.)
Walker, Peter (Worcester)


Kimball, Marcus
Pardoe, John
Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek


King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)
Pearson, Sir Frank (Clitheroe)
Wall, Patrick


Kirk, Peter
Percival, Ian
Walters, Dennis


Kitson, Timothy
Peyton, John
Ward, Dame Irene


Lancaster, Col. C. G.
Pike, Miss Mervyn
Weatherill, Bernard


Langford-Holt, Sir John
Pink, R. Bonner
Webster, David


Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry
Pounder, Rafton
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch
Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William


Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)
Price, David (Eastieigh)
Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)


Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Selwyn (Wirra)
Prior, J. M. L.
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick


Longden, Gilbert
Quennell, Miss J. M.
Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard


Loveys, W. H.
Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James
Woodnutt, Mark


Lubbock, Eric
Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter
Worsley, Marcus


McAdden, Sir Stephen
Rees-Davies, W. R.
Wylie, N. R.


MacArthur, Ian
Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David
Younger, Hn. George


Mackenzie, Alasdair(Ross&amp;Crom'ty)
Ridley, Hn.
Nicholas


Maclean, Sir Fitzroy
Ridsdale, Julian
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


McMaster, Stanley
Rippon, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey
Mr. Pym and Mr. More.


Macmillan, Maurice (Farnham)
Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)





NOES


Abse, Leo
Chapman, Donald
Faulds, Andrew


Albu, Austen
Coe, Denis
Fennyhough, E.


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Coleman, Donald
Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)


Alldritt, Walter
Concannon, J. D.
Floud, Bernard


Archer, Peter
Conlan, Bernard
Foley, Maurice


Armstrong, Ernest
Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Foot, Sir Dingle (Ipswich)


Ashley, Jack
Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)


Atkins, Ronald (Preston, N.)
Crawshaw, Richard
Ford, Ben


Atkinson, Norman (Tottenham)
Cronin, John
Forrester, John


Bacon, Rt. Hn. Alice
Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony
Fowler Gerry


Barnes, Michael
Crossman, Rt. Hn. Richard
Fraser, John (Norwood)


Barnett, Joel
Cullen, Mrs. Alice
Fraser, Rt. Hn. Tom (Hamilton)


Bellenger, Rt. Hn. F. J.
Dalyell, Tam
Freeson, Reginald


Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood
Darling, Rt. Hn. George
Gardner, Tony


Bennett, James (G'gow, Bridgeton)
Davidson, Arthur (Accrington)
Ginsburg, David


Bidwell, Sydney
Davies, Dr. Ernest (Stretford)
Gourlay, Harry


Binns, John
Davies, Ednyfed Hudson (Conway)
Gray, Dr. Hugh (Yarmouth)


Bishop, E. S.
Davies, Robert (Cambridge)
Greenwood, Rt. Hn. Anthony


Blackburn, F.
Dempsey, James
Gregory, Arnold


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Dewar, Donald
Grey, Charles (Durham)


Boardman, H.
Diamond, Rt. Hn. John
Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)


Booth, Albert
Dickens, James
Griffiths, Rt. Hn. James (Llanelly)


Boyden, James
Dobson, Ray
Griffiths, Will (Exchange)


Bradley, Tom
Doig, Peter
Gunter, Rt. Hn. R. J.


Bray, Dr. Jeremy
Donnelly, Desmond
Hamilton, James (Bothwell)


Brooks, Edwin
Driberg, Tom
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)


Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Dunn, James A.
Hart, Mrs. Judith


Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)
Dunnett, Jack
Haseldine, Norman


Brown, Bob (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, W.)
Dunwoody, Dr. John (F'th &amp; C'b'e)
Hattersley, Roy


Buchan, Norman
Eadie, Alex
Hazell, Bert


Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)
Edelman, Maurice
Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis


Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)
Edwards, Robert (Bllston)
Heffer, Eric S.


Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James
English, Michael
Henig, Stanley


Cant, R. B.
Ennals, David
Hooley, Frank


Carmichael, Neil
Ensor, David
Horner, John


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.)
Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas


Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara
Evans, Ioan L. (Birm'h'm, Yardley)
Howarth, Harry (Wellingborough)







Howarth, Robert (Bolton, E.)
Mikardo, Ian
Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)


Howell, Denis (Small Heath)
Milian, Bruce
Ross, Rt. Hn. William


Howie, W.
Miller, Dr. M. S.
Rowland, Christopher (Meriden)


Hughes, Rt, Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Milne, Edward (Blyth)
Rowlands, E. (Cardiff, N.)


Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Mitchell, R. C. (S'th'pton, Test)
Ryan, John


Hughes, Roy (Newport)
Molloy, William
Shaw, Arnold (Ilford, S.)


Hunter, Adam
Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)
Sheldon, Robert


Hynd, John
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Shinwell, Rt. Hn. E.


Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)
Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)
Shore, Peter (Stepney)


Jackson, Colin (B'h'se &amp; Spenb'gh)
Morris, John (Aberavon)
Short,Rt.Hn.Edward(N'c'tle-u-Tyne)


Jackson, Peter M. (High Peak)
Moyle, Roland
Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)


Janner, Sir Barnett
Murray, Albert
Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)


Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)
Newens, Stan
Silverman, Julius (Aston)


Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (Stechford)
Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)
Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)


Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)
Noel-Baker, Rt. Hn. Phillp(Derby, S.)
Slater, Joseph


Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)
Norwood, Christopher
Small, William


Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Cakes, Gordon
Snow, Julian


Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn(W. Ham, S.)
Ogden, Eric
Steele, Thomas(Dumbartonshire, W.)


Judd, Frank
O'Malley, Brian
Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.


Kelley, Richard
Oram, Albert E.
Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley


Kerr, Mrs. Anne (R'ter &amp; Chatham)
Orbach, Maurice
Swain, Thomas


Kerr, Dr. David (W'worth, Central)
Orme, Stanley
Swingler, Stephen


Kerr, Russell (Feltham)
Oswald, Thomas
Taverne, Dick


Leadbitter, Ted
Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, S'tn)
Thomas, George (Cardiff, W.)


Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick (Newton)
Padley, Walter
Thornton, Ernest


Lee, Rt. Hn. Jennie (Cannock)
Page, Derek (King's Lynn)
Tinn, James


Lee, John (Reading)
Paget, R. T.
Tomney, Frank


Lever, Harold (Cheetham)
Palmer, Arthur
Tuck, Raphael


Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)
Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles
Urwin, T. W.


Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.)
Park, Trevor
Varley, Eric G.


Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)
Parker, John (Dagenham)
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne valley)


Lipton, Marcus
Parkyn, Brian (Bedford)
Walden, Brian (All Saints)


Lomas, Kenneth
Pavitt, Laurence
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Luard, Evan
Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred
Wallace, George


Lyon, Alexander W. (York)
Pentland, Norman
Watkins, David (Consett)


Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)
Perry, Ernest G. (Battersea, S.)
Weitzman, David


Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson
Perry, George H. (Nottingham, S.)
Wells, William (Walsall, N.)


McBride, Neil
Prentice, Rt. Hn. R. E.
White, Mrs. Eirene


McCann, John
Price, Christopher (Perry Barr)
Whitlock, William


MacColl, James
Price, Thomas (Westhoughton)
Wigg, Rt. Hn. George


MacDermot, Niall
Price, William (Rugby)
Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick


Macdonald, A. H.
Probert, Arthur
Williams, Alan Lee (Hornchurch)


McGuire, Michael
Pursey Cmdr. Harry
Williams, Clifford (Abertillery)


Mackenzie, Gregor (Rutherglen)
Rankin, John
Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)


Mackintosh, John P.
Redhead, Edward
Williams, W. T. (Warrington)


Maclennan, Robert
Rees, Merlyn
Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)


McNamara, J. Kevin
Reynolds, G. W.
Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)


MacPherson, Malcolm
Rhodes, Geoffrey
Winnick, David


Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)
Richard, Ivor
Winterbottom, R. E.


Mallalieu, J.P.W.(Huddersfield, E.)
Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)
Woodburn, Rt. Hn. A.


Marquand, David
Roberts, Gwilym (Bedfordshire, S.)
Woof, Robert


Marsh, Rt. Hn. Richard
Robertson, John (Paisley)
Wyatt, Woodrow


Mason, Roy
Robinson, Rt. Hn. Kenneth(St. P'c'as)
Yates, Victor


Maxwell, Robert
Robinson, W. 0. J. (Walth'stow, E.)



Mayhew, Christopher
Rodgers, William (Stockton)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Mellish, Robert
Roebuck, Roy
Mr. Harper and Mr. Lawson.

Proposed words there added.


Main Question, as amended, put and agreed to.


Resolved,


That this House deplores the action of Her Majesty's Conservative Opposition in endeavouring to exploit for petty motives of electoral advantage the genuine national feelings of the Scots by its unjustified imputation of discrimination against Scotland.

SCOTLAND (EMIGRATION)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. —[Mr. Harper.]

7.16 p.m.

Mr. George Younger (Ayr): We have this evening only a comparatively short time left in which to discuss what is a very large and far-reaching subjct, but no hon. Member on eigher side of the House will dispute the fact that the question of emigration, particulary out of Scotland, is a matter of very great concern and has been so for all my lifetime. Secondly, no one will dispute that a persistently high rate of net emigration from a country is a serious obstacle to economic growth.
It is now two and a half years since we had a change of Government, and it is just over one year since the publication of the so-called Scottish Plan, the White Paper on the Scottish Economy. It is, therefore, quite interesting to look back and see what sort of progress is being made in this vital subject of emigration.
During the last 10 years the net emigration from Scotland, both to countries abroad and to other parts of the United Kingdom, has varied between as little as 20,000 in the years 1958–59 to as much as 40,000 in the years 1963–64. If we take the average over that period, we find that for the five years ended in 1964 the average figure of net emigration each year was 33,400. If we take a longer period, which might be the more reasonable thing to do, we find that the average figure of net emigration over the 10-year period ended in 1964 was 29,800.
With the background of those figures, it is a sombre and worrying thought that in the two years since 1964–that is to say, up to June, 1966–the average rate of net emigration has been at the surprising total of 45,000. That is an average rate over the two years. It represents a figure, over the five-year average which I quoted, of no less than 34 per cent., and an increase over the 10-year average of the years 1954 to 1964 of 51 per cent. I do not think that anyone, however partisan, or whatever party he represents, can conceivably be

anything but deeply concerned about a trend of that nature.

Mr. John Rankin (Glasgow, Govan): Will the hon. Gentleman make it clear whether the emigration to which he is referring is solely to England.

Mr. Younger: I am not sure what the hon. Gentleman is getting at. I made it clear that this was net emigration after taking into account inflow and outflow, and covering emigration to all parts of the world, to England, to Wales, or to anywhere else.
It is clear that during the last two years we have experienced a substantial and dramatic increase in the rate of emigration. This is shown not by an expression of opinion, but by the facts as published which are available for anyone to see. Both the last two years have shown record figures for net emigration, certainly as far back as I have been able to go, and that is at least 40 years. In 1964–65, it was 43,000, which at that time was a record. In 1965–66, it was no less than 47,000, which again was a record.

Mr. Hector Hughes: To be fair in his statement of the case, will the hon. Gentleman state that that emigration from Scotland was due largely to the policy of successive Tory Governments in encouraging trade, industry and commerce in the south of this island, and more recently in encouraging the building of a tunnel to France?

Mr. Younger: I am grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman. I hope that he will forgive me if I do not follow the trend of his remarks. I think that it would be to the benefit of the House if I were to continue with my argument. which I think is important.
During each of the last 10 years up to 1964, and in all probability for the last 30 or 40 years, no matter whether the figure of net imigration was encouraging or discouraging, or high or low, we always had one great consolation to which we could point, no matter how depressing the figures. In every year up to 1964 the emigration rate was never sufficiently high to swamp the natural increase in population due to the rising birthrate. On no occasion, and in no year up to 1964, had this happened. In the year to June, 1965, however, for the first time in


40 years, we found the population of Scotland decreasing. It was by only a very small amount, 2,400 to be precise, and it would have been reasonable for many to say at that time that they hoped it was merely a transitional effect which would not be seen in the future; that it was too small to get particularly excited about.
In 1966, however, the trend became rapidly and substantially worse, and the net loss of population—this is not loss by emigration, but is the net loss after allowing for inflow and outflow—was no less than 13,800. This was equivalent to the disappearance of the entire population of a town such as Peterhead, or Bathgate, or Galashiels. I do not think that anybody who has any pretence of being fair-minded or clear about the relationship of facts to opinions would disagree that this is extremely disturbing, and it is a record about which the Government of the day ought to be extremely worried, and about which they ought to be ashamed.
What is the present trend? Do we think that it is likely to be more favourable? I do not need to give only my view of this. I can quote the statement made no longer ago than last Friday by the Chairman of the Scottish T.U.C. In commenting on the latest rise in the unemployment figures which had just been announced, he said that
the Scottish unemployment figure of 4·1 per cent. did not include the increase in emigration from Scotland which had risen from 40,000 to 47,000 in the past year.
It is my opinion that people are leaving Scotland at a greater rate now than during last year.
I must, with a heavy heart, say that I agree with that, because in my researches I have spoken to a considerable number of people who have reason to be concerned with the problems of emigration and immigration, and not one of them disputes the statement that at the moment all the signs are that last year's depressingly high rate is likely to be higher still this year.
I have spoken to travel agents, and they have told me that during the past six months particularly they have been exceptionally busy making arrangements for whole families to emigrate to other parts of the country. I have spoken to people who work for the airlines, and

they, too, report exceptional business during the last three or four months. I have spoken to people in the shipping business, and they have the same story to tell. Perhaps most significant of all, I have spoken to a considerable number of people who are on the point of emigrating. It is not difficult to meet these people when one is near the point of exit, and I have done it.
I have been tremendously impressed by the opinion universally expressed by these people. All about them they hear people talking about emigrating, and meet people seriously thinking of doing so. I do not approve of their decision. I cannot say that I have any desire whatever to join them in emigrating, but the fact is there, and it must be faced. I suggest that everyone in this House ought to face it, and see what can be done about it.
I think that I can end my record of what has been happening over the past few years by saying that no matter what we have done, no matter what anyone has done, no matter what the present Government have done, one thing is clear, and it is that we have not been successful in stemming the net rate of emigration. In fact, it is rising rapidly.
We can go back one year to the publication of the White Paper on the Scottish Economy. It contains a fairly clear statement of the Government's aims for solving the problem of emigration. May I say, in passing, that nobody, least of all myself, would suggest that any Government could have solved this problem in one, two, or even five years. I accept that it is a longterm problem. I hope that that is clear. What I am saying is that we have to look at the fact that our present policies are not succeeding. If anything, they are making the trend worse, and it would be extremely foolish to put our heads in the sand and ignore this fact and pretend that it does not exist.
The following passage occurs on page 2 of the White Paper to which I have referred:
Although the volume of net emigration from Scotland in recent years has been so high, there are no grounds for pessimism or defeatism about the possibility of reducing it.
Those were welcome words. I remember reading them and feeling that we had a good prospect of progress in the right direction, but I wonder whether, when that sentence was approved, it was


already known that the figures for the last half of 1965 were showing the increase which they finally did?
Be that as it may, the White Paper gives the main reasons influencing people to emigrate from Scotland under three main headings. First, work and career prospects; secondly, levels of earnings, and, thirdly, environment. Before I look at each of these I want to make clear the various factors making up net emigration. It is made up of two conflicting trends.
One is the emigration of people from Scotland to go to any part of the world, and the other is the corresponding inflow of people to Scotland from any part of the world. The emigration part of that can be further divided into two sections, those emigrating to countries abroad and those emigrating to other parts of the United Kingdom. Although the experiences of people who go to these places may be different, it is generally agreed that the factors which make people emigrate are generally speaking, the same, whether they are going abroad or to another part of the United Kingdom.
The subject of immigration to Scotland is where one finds a most interesting area for considering the effects of these feelings which people are experiencing. The Scottish Council's Report on Immigration, published last year, is a most useful and thoughtful document. It introduces what is one of the most significant conclusions, and it is well worthy of note by all of us. It is that when one analyses the figures, the emigration from Scotland is no greater on the whole than the emigration from other parts of the United Kingdom. It is not substantially different. It certainly is not greater.
The interesting point is that what is very much less—in the case of Scotland significantly less—is the number of people entering Scotland from other parts of the United Kingdom. This conclusion interested me very much, and it merits much thought. The immigration to Scotland runs at about half the rate of immigration into other parts of England, such as the South-East, the North, or Wales.
I want to look at this more closely. If we take the factors affecting emigration under the three headings in the

White Paper in turn we can see some of the factors which must be having an effect. The first heading is, "Work and Career Prospects". It does not take a very lively imagination, or a very close study of contemporary affairs, to see that at the head of the factors affecting that category must be the question of rising unemployment, something which all of us deplore, wherever we sit in this House.
Unemployment has been rising now for at least the last ten months, and now stands at a level of 4·1 per cent. There was a rise even between January and February. This previously happened in 1963, at a time of an exceptionally hard winter. It is very depressing that this year it has happened again, at a time when we have had the mildest winter that anyone to whom I have spoken can ever remember. Even if we look at the rate of rise in unemployment in the last few months, we see that unfortunately the rate of rise in Scotland has been, for instance, between December and January 10·8 per cent., whereas in England it was exactly half, 5.4 per cent.
It would take a very optimistic person indeed to declare that this rising rate of unemployment, now 90,000 in Scotland, has had no effect at all upon the number of people who are apparently emigrating from Scotland. We should take this very seriously. One of the most serious consequences is that in encouraging, although we do not wish to do this, more people to emigrate by letting unemployment rise, we are inhibiting the future chances of growth in Scotland which will finally decrease the unemployment rate in Scotland.

Mr. John P. Mackintosh: The Scottish Council's Report explicitly says that unemployment is not in its view a cause of emigration and that the unemployed do not migrate. It gives up this particular correlation as a direct causal factor.

Mr. Younger: It does not go quite as far as that. That is what I thought the first time that I read it, but if the hon. Gentleman reads it again he will see that what it says is that unemployment is not necessarily a major factor. It goes on to say, in the following paragraph, that one cannot rule out the fact that unemployment has always been a factor of


some kind in emigration. It would be a very optimistic person who would state that this had no effect at all on the migration rate.
Secondly—and this comes out quite clearly in all the conversations that I have had with those about to emigrate—heavily increased taxation is something which impresses people. There have been heavy increases during the last two years. Anyone who has spoken to those in industry knows that one of the chief talking points when earnings go up through increased overtime or a better job is the disincentive of finding that larger deduction at the end of the week in P.A.Y.E.
This is a very real factor, discouraging people from working more or taking more responsibility, and more difficult jobs. Inevitably, this affects people's careers and work prospects in this country. Income Tax has risen during the last two years from 7s. 6d. to 8s. 3d. in the pound and this affects everyone, whether they are wage earning or salary earning or anything else.
Every emigrant to whom one speaks is leaving in the hope, which may not be fulfilled, that the place for which they are bound, if they are going abroad, will impose a lower rate of personal taxation. It is arguable whether they find this to be the case, but that is one of the reasons why they go. Increases in taxation are undoubtedly a powerful factor in encouraging people to give up their job here and to go abroad. For a country like Scotland, widely spread and scattered and depending very greatly on transport facilities, there is no doubt that the unattractive-ness of living at the end of a long haul when transport costs have risen so dramatically, by over 10 per cent. in some cases, in the last two years is a powerful disincentive to entering the country and taking up employment, particularly in the remoter areas. This would repay very serious consideration.
There are people in business, small businesses particularly, who are finding the increasing taxation on close companies a powerful disincentive. This applies to those in business, or trying to set up business under the Government's present policy. This factor was mentioned to me no fewer than three times during last weekend. It would be quite ridiculous for me to cover this subject without mentioning the effect of the Selective Employ-

ment Tax. This tax has been debated at great length in this House and in the country and I must say that from all the words spoken about it it would seem to have very few friends indeed.
It is quite extraordinary, that in a country with a rising unemployment rate, and which has always had an unemployment problem the Government should impose over that country, including Scotland, what amounts to quite simply a tax on jobs, because this is what S.E.T. really is. If anyone doubts that, let him ask anyone in the tourist trade, in transport and road haulage or in the building industry. Let him ask any of those people whether it is not the case that the impact of the tax has certainly put up costs, and is a disincentive to employing people. It is a tax on jobs, and yet it operates in a country which is at the moment, perhaps more than it has been for years past, desperately anxious to get jobs for as many people as it can.
The second main heading which the White Paper gave for people tending to emigrate is the level of earnings. Earlier today we went into a particular case in some considerable detail concerning the level of earnings and various things associated with it. The fact, stated very moderately in the Scottish Council's Report, is that for many years the earnings level in Scotland has been running at about 6 per cent. below the level in the rest of the United Kingdom and as much as 9 per cent. below the level in the South-East.
Surely, this fact, if no other, suggests that a wage freeze applied universally and indiscriminately over the country, including the development areas, has—and I put this very mildly—serious disadvantages for the development areas, much more serious than for areas such as the South-East where employment is no problem.
Page 8 of the Scottish Council's Report is perfectly correct. It states:
The basic point is that earnings in Scotland must rise faster than in the South-East and Midlands for the net loss of population to fall.
That is a very clear statement. That is the opinion of people who have gone into the question of emigration, and it shows clearly the necessity for earnings to rise faster in Scotland than in the South-East and the Midlands in order to stem the net loss of population. We all know


the reasons for the "freeze". We all know the difficulties. But here is a clear statement of one way in which we could help the net loss of population in Scotland. I hope that the Government will consider it very seriously.
The third heading is "Environment". As mentioned in the White Paper, environment covers so many things that it is impossible to go over them all. But when talking to people about emigration the first question which comes up on almost every occasion is housing. The difficulty of finding suitable housing is very critical indeed, particularly for people coming into Scotland. This would always be a problem. It has been a problem for a long time. Even since 1960 only 25 per cent. of the houses built in Scotland have been built for private owners as against nearly 60 per cent. in England and Wales.
It is disturbing to find that this rate of private house building has faltered over a considerable part of the period under discussion for obvious and very good reasons. For instance, the Scottish Council's Report describes private completions in the first half of 1966 as a "meagre" 19 per cent. of the total. This is against an average figure for the previous five years of about 25 per cent. I do not suggest that this is the entire answer, but people coming into Scotland from other parts of the United Kingdom have to rely on there being a pool of private housing for them to move into. What about the housing figures for the past three years? They are an indictment of a policy which aims at stemming migration from Scotland. The figure of 37,171 in 1964 was down in the following year by about 2,000 —35,116. Even in 1966 it was down by over 1,000 houses compared with the figure in 1964.
High interest rates influence people wishing to come to Scotland. We have had the longest period of high interest rates ever. Is it not a logical conclusion to draw that people moving into the country are finding it more difficult to obtain and afford to buy houses? Building costs have risen by about 10 per cent. or more in the past two years. This makes it more difficult for people coming to Scotland.
The second question which people raise who wish to come to Scotland is schooling. Again, we require a different atti-

tude by the Government. There are plans in the next few months and years to divert funds from the urgently needed improvement of education in Scotland to putting together comprehensive schemes and abolishing well-known and highly trusted educational establishments in Scotland. This again is no way to attract people to the country. Anyone who scoffs and says that this is an irrelevance has only to speak to people who come from afar.

Mr. Mackintosh: From where?

Mr. Younger: From parts of England.

Mr. Mackintosh: Give an instance.

Mr. Younger: The question people ask is, "What are the educational facilities in the area to which we are likely to go?" One factor which can help to persuade people to move is a variety of schooling available for the needs of their children. I do not suggest that we should disregard all the trends in education. All that I am saying is that it is a great incentive to people if there is a variety of education facilities available for them to choose from.

Mr. Alex Eadie (Midlothian): Surely the hon. Gentleman will agree that what concerns parents most is that there is no 11-plus examination or predetermination of children's schooling. Surely he will agree that a comprehensive system of education, or a form of comprehensive education, must be tempting to people, knowing that, according to ability, aptitude and character, their children will get the full advantage of educational opportunity.

Mr. Younger: I do no think that the hon. Gentleman and I are very far apart. I would entirely agree that a good school of any kind, comprehensive or not, attracts people to an area. All that I am saying is that if people do not have a variety of choice it is a disincentive. I do not think that many hon. Members would disagree with that.
Perhaps the remaining points on environment can be summed up under the heading of "higher costs". There is no doubt that in every field of activity the more remote and scattered areas such as Scotland suffer more from rising costs than the congested areas of the south of England or any other part of the country.


The fuel tax has a much greater impact in scattered areas than it has in congested areas. There are the extra costs on all forms of transport. Even such things as postal and telephone charges are a greater factor in the lives of people in places which are remote and scattered.
It is a real factor particularly when the effects on wives and families are considered. There are the higher costs of building in Scotland about which we have had plenty of discussion recently, and the higher costs of gas and coal which, although they have been high for a long time, have increased in the past two years. This is another disincentive.
I have mentioned the Selective Employment Tax, but it is interesting to note that the survey made during the last few weeks by the Scottish chambers of commerce show that 22 major wholesalers in Glasgow have made 6 per cent. of their employees — 1,250 people — redundant purely because of the effects of the tax.
Finally, I must come to my suggestions about what the Government could do to try to reverse this disastrous rise in emigration. There are a lot of things they could do, but there are three particular things which I very much hope can be done by the Government as a contribution to this end. The first is that at the earliest opportunity they should abolish the Selective Employment Tax, especially in Scotland. Perhaps no single thing could give a greater fillip to the needs of the regions and the difficulties of people working in conditions of rising unemployment in the regions than the feeling that they were getting a chance to be exempted from this tax, at least until they managed to catch up.
My second suggestion is that the Government should, as deliberate policy—this is a particular task which I hope that the Secretary of State can undertake—insist that when reflation comes it comes first to the development areas. I hope that it will be noted that I say "development areas", because there are other parts of the United Kingdom as well as Scotland which should come into this category. I hope that the Government will, therefore, tell us that it is their deliberate policy to see that when reflation comes, it comes first to these development areas.
Thirdly, I hope that when the Government are considering the next stage of the prices and incomes legislation they will use their powers to allow those areas which have been for a long time, and still are, seriously behind in the level of average earnings a chance to catch up. When the incomes policy passes into its next phase, here is a real opportunity, which may not recur for many years, to enable the regions which are behind to catch up and get on to a level with the rest of the country.
The reasons that make people emigrate are understandable, although I do not myself share them. I do not agree that there is genuine cause to be reluctant to move to Scotland. I consider that in many respects it has a great deal of attraction over other parts of the country. I hope that if only we can do these various things to make the economic circumstances more favourable, we can reverse this trend.
As I said when I began, this problem has been with us for a long time. What is new, however, is that there is now a clear indication that a worsening trend has set in. I have outlined some of the reasons why this may be so and I have backed them up with a lot of instances, examples and solid facts. It is because of the adverse effects in most respects of the Government on Scotland that the Secretary of State is now presiding over a country whose population is declining. If he does not recognise these facts and take action to put them right, he will stand condemned for many years to come by the people of Scotland.

7.53 p.m.

The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Dr. J. Dickson Mabon): I have heard my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State blamed for many things, but this last one from the hon. Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger) is extremely peculiar. I will elaborate that. When the hon. Member reads his speech, he will be surprised how much in it was selective and did not do the kind of service to Scotland that we would like. I know that that was not the hon. Member's intention, but he will see that his speech was not the usual balanced speech which we get from him on these occasions.
I do not deny, and neither does my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, that emigration from Scotland is one of


the most serious problems besetting the Scottish economy. Emigration on a fluctuating scale has been recorded for the last century and a half, but it is literally only now that positive measures are being taken to reduce the outflow from Scotland. I will justify that statement. The estimated net loss to both home and overseas destinations in the year from mid-1965 to mid-1966–the recent figures—was 47,000, the highest since the war.
I was surprised that the hon. Member for Ayr spoke about the blame attaching to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the fact that there was a net loss in the total population of Scotland. What happened in the twelve months from mid-1965 to mid-1966, as examination of the figures proves, was that we had a fall in the natural increase. In fact, instead of an increase it was a decrease. It is the first time that we have had such a sharp decrease—13·1 per thousand—for about 20 years or more. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is responsible for many things, but he is not responsible for the fall in the birthrate. That, however, is what is suggested. While I may be willing to admit part responsibility in this situation, it is not a fair point, and it must not be exaggerated.
The trend from 1951 to the present time is worth examining. Looking at the averages, we see that the total net loss annually was almost 32,000–the hon. Member for Ayr gave an average of 33,000 for a shorter period–17,000 going to other countries of the United Kingdom, mainly England, and the remaining 15,000 going to countries overseas.
This series of figures, however, is made up of a number of fluctuations, from which two significant points emerge. The first is that each peak figure of total net loss—in 1952–53, 1956–57, 1960–61 and 1965–66–has been higher than the previous one. The second point is that although over the whole period migration to other United Kingdom countries has been heavier than migration overseas, the balance has recently altered. Over the last two years–1964, for part of which the previous Government were responsible, and 1965–66–United Kingdom migration has fallen from a peak of

24,000 to a lower figure of 22,000. Over the last six years, overseas migration has risen from the low level of 9,000 to a total of 25,000.
The recent increase in the overall net total has, therefore, been due to a continuing rise in the numbers of those who have been leaving Scotland for overseas destinations, a rise which, according to our figures, has gone on steadily since as far back as 1960. But it was not until the present Government took office that steps were taken to provide, especially in regions of Scotland where emigration was an even more serious and obvious problem than unemployment, the legislative instruments necessary to deal with the situation. I remind the House that the Industrial Development Act, 1966, came into force on 19th August last year, some 40 days after the figures which we are discussing were recorded.
The Government have not only provided a more effective range of financial inducements to industrial growth in development areas, but have made sure that these areas included for the first time regions such as the Borders and all of North-East Scotland, where for many years outward migration has caused especially acute local concern.
The need for really effective powers is all the more critical because emigration is a long-term problem. The reasons which make individuals uproot themselves, and in many cases their families, are very complex, but no one takes such a drastic step without fairly thorough consideration and without weighing the pros and cons. I do not know about the effect of close companies on emigration, but I would think that bigger factors than that have led to this volume of emigration.
Past history and experience play such a strong part in conditioning men's minds and attitudes that it is bound to take time before the significant and substantial changes which are taking place in Scottish industry, housing and environment can affect long-term migration trends.
The hon. Member talked about what he called the terrible years from 1964 to 1966 when we built, respectively, over 37,000, over 35,000 and over 36,000 houses. When were the last couple of years—never mind three years, because


they do not exist—when we built over 35,000 houses in Scotland? It was a decade before. It was only in 1953 and 1954 that we got over the 35,000 figure. I regard these three years as being relatively good. They may not be enough, I quite agree, and the hon. Member for Ayr may enjoy having arguments about what is marginally less or marginally more, but these are three good years of Scottish house building compared with the miserable decade during which the party opposite presided over our fortunes when we never built anything like these figures. Right hon. and hon. Members opposite must be held to this.
The hon. Member for Ayr referred to the Scottish Council report on private housing for the first few months of 1966. If he takes the figures for 1966 in terms of private enterprise, it will be seen that they are the best which we have had, though they are still not good enough. The ratio is wrong. It should not be one in five, but one and one. However, we cannot get near that unless we press on with large public investment programmes and give the kind of incentives which hon. Gentlemen opposite did not give. We have brought in the home ownership scheme with the option mortgage. That is extremely relevant to a country with low wage rates, because mortgages are not normally given to people on low wage rates and those who do not have substantial incomes.
I will not take up all the points which the hon. Gentleman mentioned at such great length because there were many of them and I do not want to take more time than I can help from back bench Members. Some of them I will leave to my right hon. Friend when he comes to wind up.
In the 1950s and early 1960s, nothing was done effectively to provide the means of stemming the flow of people from the country. It is only recently that we have taken such steps. I do not know how one could assess the effect of the loss of manpower, skills and even children who would now be reaching working age if we had not done what the Government have done since coming to office. Some of the hon. Gentleman's remarks about unemployment, which I will come to, show one side of the picture which he has been painting.
The Government have been considering as a first priority ways to ensure that the basic essentials of jobs, housing and other facilities are provided in Scotland as quickly as possible. They have also thought it essential to provide for expansion of the facilities for training and retraining. Let us examine what has been achieved since October, 1964, bearing in mind that, in the migration pattern, two and a half years is a very short time.
The first essential is to ensure that the jobs are available in quantity and variety. Both in area and in terms of estimated employment, the total of industrial development certificates issued during 1965 and 1966 represented a rate of approvals higher than in any other comparable period during the 1960s. It is fair to say that in the period 1960 to 1963 we had a good and increasing rate, though still not enough. However, the rates in 1965 and 1966 knocked those figures into a cocked hat. In addition, the number of jobs provided in the last two years reached almost 48,000. The number of jobs provided in the previous four years was barely 54,000. In other words, we have done as much in two years as was done in the preceding three and a half years. That, I suggest, is not a diagnosis of decadence or stagnation. On the contrary, Scotland is a country which is at last trying to move ahead and provide itself with the sinews of redevelopment and recreation.
To turn away from jobs to advance factories, I can remember fighting forlornly in this House as a back bencher for four or five years even to get the principle established. We finally got three miserable advance factories in 1959. There was a great conversion on the other side between 1959 and 1964. The total number of factories authorised between 1951 and 1964 was 24, or less than two a year. In two and a half years, we have designated 34. What could be more clear? None of us now argues the principle of the usefulness of advance factories, and there is great competition to get more. But, looking back on the days when we were denied them by hon. Gentlemen opposite, I can remember the present Viscount Muirshiel rebutting us constantly right up to the 1959 election.
In the White Paper which has been referred to, we have tried to put emphasis


on areas of high net emigration. It is particularly important that more new jobs should become available in those areas which are the main sources of the outward movement of population. It is estimated that, during the four years 1961 to 1965, over 60 per cent. of the net outflow was attributable to the Glasgow planning sub-region, comprising broadly Glasgow, Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, Dunbarton and all except Southern Ayrshire. It is therefore very relevant that more than half the total area of new industrial space authorised in 1965 and 1966 was in that sub-region. Furthermore, of the additional jobs which it is estimated will be provided in these new factories or extensions, no less than 66 per cent. will be for men. In Greater Glasgow itself the proportion will be as high as 76 per cent. That is highly significant in the migration context.
When we came to office, there were 529 places in Government training centres. Today, there are 900 places and, last year, we trained 1,150 people. It may be said that they did not then get jobs in Scotland, but it must be pointed out that 87 per cent. of those who completed training courses obtained employment in Scotland using their new skills. But we are not content with that. We want to push forward with the building of the new Edinburgh centre this year, and we hope to complete another in North Lanarkshire next year. By that time, the output of the nine centres will be between 2,000 and 2,500 trainees per year. Of course, that is not enough, but it is much better than hon. Gentlemen opposite did.
In private industry we have been remarkably successful in pushing forward with training schemes. To date, the Government have given grants totalling nearly £1 million to 188 companies towards the training of some 1,400 workers.
Turning to technological change, at the end of the Second World War there was only one electronics factory in Scotland. Today, there are 50 such units. The important thing is to see the advantages which these important complexes are bringing, because it is not only the number of jobs but the quality and variety of them which are important. In addition, when one considers the benefits

in relation to the output of Scotland's universities, colleges of advanced technology and other centres of higher education, the point becomes even more clear.
I will not give a lot of examples, but only last week Elliott Bros. of Cowdenbeath announced a further extension to its factory, in addition to the extension already being built and to its decision to acquire yet another factory on the nearby Fife County Council estate at Hillend. Together with its factory and research laboratories at Glenrothes, the firm almost forms an electronic complex in itself. The continued expansion of this and other notable electronics firms in east and central Scotland will support the growth of population which is planned in these areas and make an effective contribution towards our overall aims.
The Government recognise the importance of developing an administrative machine capable of supporting and stimulating growth in this vital sector. The Ministry of Technology is particularly active in giving its practical support in a number of ways.
Let us consider the "firsts" which Scotland has to her credit. We have the first laboratory workshops of the Ministry of Technology's "Approaching Automation" campaign which will be of special benefit to the smaller firms. They were opened recently by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary. The first operational team in the Ministry's Production Engineering Advisory Service will soon be at work there. The first institute of the sort recommended by the Fielden Committee in its report on engineering design will be established at East Kilbride and devoted to the design of machine tools and their associated control systems. One can go on giving examples from the industrial scene of the kinds of developments occurring in Scotland.
We accept that the present time is hardly a happy one in relation to the whole economy, and there is quite legitimate apprehension lest the advances which we have secured and which are in prospect for the Scottish economy should be lost by the reduction in the rate of growth of the national economy which has taken place since July. It would be illusory to think that any part of the nation's economy could be entirely


independent of these changes. The measures which we took were necessary. That cannot be questioned. In the immediate short term, there may continue to be some difficulties, and the Government cannot view with equanimity a Scottish unemployment rate of 4·1 per cent.

Mr. J. Bruce-Gardyne: The hon. Gentleman has referred to the rate of growth, but is he not aware that the rate of growth since the party opposite came to power is one-third that which was persisting in the equivalent period before then?

Dr. Mabon: I will certainly look at the point again to see if the hon. Gentleman is accurate, but I doubt if he is.
If one looks at the unemployment figure, it is difficult to believe that hon. Members opposite have forgotten that between January and February, 1967, the number of totally unemployed decreased by 856, where normally we would expect a seasonal increase of 200. If one looks at the unemployment figures for February, 1963, they were 136,000. In February, 1964, they were 96,000. Even that was higher than we have today, at a time which was supposed to be a boom year in the Scottish economy, if we listen to hon. Gentlemen opposite. The Government believe that industry, through investment in this present difficult period, and in other ways, can equip Scotland to take advantage of the opportunities to expand when the time comes. Only by consistent progress with our plans for the long-term future of Scotland can we conquer the chronic problem of emigration.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Sydney Irving): I would remind hon. Members that this debate is a very short one and that the shorter hon. Members are able to keep their speeches the more hon. Members will be able to participate.

8.10 p.m.

Mr. Russell Johnston (Inverness): It strikes me that the Conservative Party really is an incredible institution. It drifts along year after year allowing the situation which we are debating tonight to develop and then, when it goes into opposition, it becomes imbued with a synthetic indignation and goes around condemning conditions which it tholed and which it very often defended when

they were worse then than they are now. It is incredible. To see the Conservative Party describing itself as a pressure group for Scotland is worthy of the Palladium.
The problem of emigration has certainly been with us for a long time. Equally, the rate of emigration has been steadily rising. In the Scottish Grand Committee the hon. Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger) mentioned how longwinded Front Benchers were. Times change. The whole question has been covered pretty fully tonight. One cannot attribute emigration to one facet of the situation. Various things contribute. Housing has been mentioned. Lord Clydesmuir recently laid particular emphasis on that.
The Minister pointed to the fact that, although he has not met what he promised, he has done a better job than the Conservatives. That was largely the Minister's synthesis which he ran through rather rapidly. He rattled out at machine gun pace the fact that we had been producing more and more things and that the things we were producing were larger things than the Conservatives produced. But there is a tendency in our society to produce more things. The fact that there are more factories here and there has to be reasonably expected, in any event, in a society which advances in the normal way.
It was not wholly relevant to the fact that the emigration rate now stands higher than ever before. It would have been reasonable for the Minister to say that this was the peak and he hoped it would go down. We would have liked to have the same sort of confidence from the Minister on emigration as we had on housing. Though we remember he did not meet his target on housing.
The hon. Member for Ayr produced three answers to the problem. First, he said that we should abolish S.E.T. I should be delighted to see it abolished. The Secretary of State, who is always quick with his tongue, snapped me up when I asked him a question the other day on the comparative numbers of manufacturing jobs and service jobs in the Highlands. We know that 800 service jobs have been produced as compared with 300 manufacturing jobs. That is against the general purpose of S.E.T., which was designed to cut down


the number of service jobs. It is not very logical. But even if we abolished S.E.T. we should not make any progress; we should merely be back to square one, where we were under the Conservative Administration, when the emigration rate was rising.
I agree that reflation confined to development areas is a sound principle. The Liberal Party has been preaching regional variation of taxation for a long time. It is all very well for hon. Members to smile, but it is true. As the Minister pointed out, the Conservatives were not even convinced about the desirability of building advance factories until relatively recently. They refused to accept depopulation as a criterion for regional variation in the Local Employment Act, 1961. Now they are always talking about it. They become converted very quickly.
The basic trouble is that there is a lack of any centre of decision in Scotland. The case for a Scottish Parliament to deal with Scottish affairs is clear and incontrovertible. Until we can create in Scotland a focus and and impetus and initiative we shall not be able to generate the energy to tackle the problem properly.

Mr. Donald Dewar: Will the hon. Gentleman comment upon the performance of Northern Ireland, which has had a far larger measure of depopulation?

Mr. Johnston: The hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Dewer) has not become any more relevant since his university debating days. He will know that the case of Northern Ireland is not directly analogous. Northern Ireland is in an artificial situation, created because of religious reasons. It has no sound justification as an economy. I do not want to pursue that point because it is not wholly relevant.
There is no doubt that emigration and depopulation, especially among the better trained and better educated of Scots often springs from a sense of frustration and the knowledge that major decisions are made outside Scotland. Inevitably, there is a drift towards the South and to the centres of financial, industrial and political power. Furthermore, there is no magnet in Scotland to pull people back up.
Only an effective Scottish administration can overcome the problem. We produce

a high proportion of graduates. We are not a poor country. It is basically a question of ill-directed and ill-informed remote control which squanders Scottish resources.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: The hon. Member makes a lot of the question of decision-making. Is it his party's policy that Treasury and Board of Trade decisions should be made in Scotland?

Mr. Johnston: I do not wish to go into that matter. If the hon. Member happened to be present when I was introducing a Bill on the subject—

Mr. Dalyell: I was.

Mr. Johnston: —he would have got the exact answer. It is merely that I do not wish to spend a lot of time on it. I should be delighted to do so. The short answer is that we want differential financial control in Scotland. I am prepared to enlarge on the subject, if the hon. Member wants me to, but I know that other hon. Members want to speak.
Hon. Members on both sides of the House must face the fact that Scotland has been lagging behind on all sorts of issues. N.A.L.G.O. was referred to today. It seems to have been accepted that the Scottish pay claims will be settled later than English ones. One remembers the business of the Forestry Headquarters. The Conservatives may cry "Ha, ha!", but they decided it should be in Basingstoke, and the Labour Government confirmed it.

Earl of Dalkeith: Nonsense.

Mr. Johnston: I shall be delighted to give way if the noble Lord wishes to interrupt me. He can refer to a Written Question which I put down and which the Secretary of State answered, to the effect that the decision was made by the previous Administration. Similarly, with colour television, Scotland will lag behind. How can a tiny country like Norway successfully tackle their far greater problem of sparse population while Scotland fails? Ireland tackles the problem of the tourist industry far better than Scotland does. It is not that we lack the ability, technical or administrative; we lack the power of decision, which alone gives such abilities full release.


The Minister may smile, but I remember a little bird telling me that on one occasion—when he was perhaps wiser—he signed the national covenant which was in favour of a form of the devolution that Liberals advocate. One wonders why he did not follow it through. Certainly, it seems that the Minister of State has given this due consideration in his day.
We have had Labour Governments and Tory Governments and exactly the same sort of wasting disease has persisted under both. Fundamentally, this is because neither is prepared to allow Scotland a greater say in the decisions which determine her future. They have their reasons and these reasons deserve thought. The Liberals have thought about them and rejected them. Unless we have devolution all plans to help Scotland are sops and palliatives. They are designed to keep the Scots quiet and are aimed at the symptoms not the cause of the disease.

8.20 p.m.

Mr. Alex Eadie (Midlothian): I do not intend to follow the theme of the hon. Member for Inverness (Mr. Russell Johnston), but there seems to be general agreement that emigration is a serious problem in Scotland and probably worse than the so-called "brain drain". This needs to be emphasised. I take issue with the hon. Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger) on education. He does Scotland a great disservice when he brings in the issue of comprehensive education, which has a long tradition in Scotland.
On his point about people coming into Scotland, as it relates to skilled staff—if they know that, in a certain area, that Jeanie or Johnnie will get an educational chance without the worry of the 11-plus, and will not face the prospect of some areas in England, where if one is a little unlucky one year one does not go to grammar school, those staff will be attracted. I can say from experience that this works.
Therefore, I could not understand the hon. Gentleman's reference to dealing with comprehensive education as if it had some attachment to legislation—

Earl of Dalkeith: It is an issue in Pollok. That is the point.

Mr. Eadie: If it is, we shall be glad to debate it in Pollok.
We are probably agreed that more people are emigrating overseas than to England. I wonder, however, whether there is some relevance in the present high-powered advertising. I know that any weekend in most sections of the Press one can see attractive advertisements to induce people overseas. I am not saying that there are no other problems, but this has some impact. The debate has demonstrated that our outflow of population is the same as in some other areas in England but the important factor seems to be our failure to attract people in corresponding numbers. These are the figures which do not match; the hon. Member for Ayre put this point fairly.
We should realise what this means. The figures are relevant. For example, a net loss of 1,000 migrants a year costs about 30 births a year for each of the next 10 years and about 20 in each of the following five years. This can be best illustrated in the Borders, from which, in 1951–61, emigration was twice that of the Highlands. I have often had letters from constituents protesting about this emigration and people sometimes assume that the rate is higher than in the Highlands. I am not saying that we should be satisfied about the position in the Highlands, but the inflow to the Borders is mainly retired and old people and the outflow consists of younger people. This is disastrous for an area.
As to the causes of the problem, I am not sure that the reasons given by the hon. Member for Ayr were very penetrating. I was reminded the other day that we should not liken the problem of emigration to the experiment carried out in Loch Sween, where artificial fertiliser was used in fish farming. The loch proved to be rather colder than the Atlantic and the fish migrated. Scotland's problem goes a little deeper than the climate.
Housing is probably one of the reasons, but if hon. Gentlemen want to underline it, they are to some extent indicting their own policy when they were in Government. I do not want to enter into an argument about who built the greater number of houses, but the kind of housing conditions which have prevailed in Scotland are a contributory factor to emigration.


Job opportunities are another, as are the numbers of unemployed in the regions and the rate of industrial change. My hon. Friend tried to demonstrate the change which is taking place in Scotland and he is entitled to say that we are beginning to capture the electronics industry. But something more dramatic than this is needed. He could take some credit for another relevant factor, in view of the questions of the hon. Member for Inverness about whether the Government are giving Scotland a fair share.
It is interesting to note how much the Government are spending in Scotland, particularly when one remembers that Scotland has 10 per cent. of the country's population. On roads, they are spending 10·5 per cent. of total expenditure; airports, 21·2 per cent.; agriculture and fisheries, 31·5 per cent.; housing, 16·5 per cent.; education, 10·62 per cent.; health, 10·3 per cent.; police and law, 9·12 per cent.; children's services, 10·82 per cent.; and on the promotion of employment, 32·62 per cent. I quote these figures because they are relevant when we speak of the need for Government aid in Scotland.
I do not want my hon. Friends to get the impression from my remarks that the Government have solved the problem or that we in Scotland are over the hill of our troubles. I could give many figures showing that more needs to be done, but certainly the figures I have given signpost the way in which the Government are thinking on this issue.
I have read in the newspapers that Argyll miners who have been made redundant have been told that they can find jobs in Ayr and south of the Border. Neither the Government nor Government agencies should pursue a policy which induces miners to go south. After all, there are pits in Scotland. I hope that the Minister will comment on the issue of selective coal prices, since this practice is causing miners to join the drift south. Some time ago I put a Question to the Minister of Power and was told that the Government would be prepared to look at any new proposition about prices which the National Coal Board might put forward. if we are to stem the drift south, this matter must be considered most carefully.
When considering the drift south we cannot ignore the issue of the Common Market. What will our entry into Europe mean to Scotland? Do the Government have any long-term plans or ideas about the effects of our entry? A lot is said about the proposed Channel Tunnel, our joining the E.E.C. and other trends, but I fear that they will act as a pipeline through which more Scottish people will seek employment south of the Border. The Government's long-term plans on this matter must be stated if we in Scotland are to have a clear idea about the future.
There are many issues I would like to discuss, but I am aware that many other hon. Members hope to contribute to the debate. The economic and political policies of the Government must cater for the future and we should be told what is in store for Scotland in the years ahead. I hope that, in this and future debates, hon. Members on both sides will continue to stress the problems created by the drift to the South, and I trust that the Minister will answer some of the questions I have asked.

8.33 p.m.

Earl of Dalkeith: It is always a pleasure to listen to speeches made by the hon. Member for Midlothian (Mr. Eadie) because he always indulges in the maximum of constructive suggesting and the minimum of party political point-scoring. I hope that I shall follow his good example.
The earlier debate today concerned one of the most topical of the many hot potatoes which the Government are grasping. That debate will obviously make the headlines. Nevertheless, from the point of view of the future well being of Scotland, this is far and away one of the, if not the, most important debates we could be having. I welcome it for that reason and, like the hon. Member for Midlothian, I have some constructive suggestions to make.
First, however, I should mention that the speech of the hon. Member for Inverness (Mr. Russell Johnston) may lengthen my remarks by about a quarter of a minute. He produced a fruity, Scottish Nationalist speech to which I listened with interest. I agreed with a few of the points he made, being a Scottish Nationalist at heart, though not in my head. His criticisms were aimed not so much at


the Act of Union, but at the failure of the Government to honour that Act in many respects from Scotland's point of view.
I believe that the hon. Gentleman was slightly confused on the question of the headquarters of the Forestry Commission. My understanding, after making a very careful examination at the time, is that there was a time when it was decided that there should be two separate Forestry Commissions with headquarters, in England and in Scotland. It was at that time that the decision to move the headquarters to Basingstoke was taken. Later, after the present Government came to office, it was decided to have one headquarters.
I propose to take what might be considered to be a slightly unorthodox line on the question of emigration. My main concern is more about the quality of the emigrants than with their quantity. Are they the type of people whom Scotland can afford to lose? I am convinced that, if we are to produce the right policies to ensure that Scotland is developed soundly over the years to come, we must collect a great deal more statistical information about those who are leaving Scotland —information in terms of age, sex, skills, training qualifications, and their reasons for leaving. Then we must carry out an analysis as between those who go to England and those who leave the United Kingdom.
The fact that the numbers are rising alarmingly at present makes this task much more urgent. The average number who abandoned Scotland over the last two years—that is up to June, 1966; two years of Labour misrule—rose by 30 per cent. over the average for the preceding four years. Therefore, this question needs to be treated as a matter of considerable urgency.
The fact-finding machinery which was outlined by the Minister of Technology in the debate on 13th February does not wholly answer Scotland's problem, because this machinery is designed simply to gather statistical information from emigrants who go to overseas countries. This does not concern Scotland's particular problem of those who go from Scotland to other parts of the United Kingdom. These people amount to one-half of the total.
We can all probably hazard a fairly good guess as to why many people go to countries like Australia. A reasonably conservative friend of mine who lives in Australia said to me just before the 1964 General Election, "I hope to goodness that the Socialists win, because we are desperately in need of more people to come to Australia. It is clear that, under a life of Socialism with high taxation and the rest, the exodus will start". That has turned out to be so.
If we discovered by chance those who are leaving Scotland comprise mainly elderly people, perhaps people going off to retire in places like Brighton, or the drones and loafers who think that they can get more money for less work in England, we might have less cause for anxiety. On the other hand, if they comprise skilled technicians, craftsmen, scientists, men of initiative and enterprise, we have great cause for concern and we must greatly deplore their departure and seek ways of encouraging them to stay.
Various reasons have been given to explain why people are leaving. There are some indications, but I suggest that they are not anything like sufficient for us to make any calculations of what policies should be introduced to persuade them to stay. Some of the suggestions are that jobs and job opportunities play a prominent part. Housing also plays a prominent part. In this context I believe that the method of boosting development by concentrating our efforts on the self-regenerating growth point areas is a matter of great relevance. I hope that the Government will seriously consider this concept of planning, which was introduced by the Conservatives but which the present Government now seem to have scrapped.
There is a good deal of truth in what has been said so far about the great exodus concealing the gravity of the present unemployment figures. My hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger), in his excellent opening speech, pointed out that at this time of the year the unemployment figures have risen, which is unusual, although the weather has been very good. In this context, I regret to say that I was misreported a week or so ago in HANSARD as having congratulated the Government not, as I said, for having produced good


weather or a good climate but for producing a good climate of opinion, which was very far from what I meant.
It is important that we should aim with much greater clarity of mind to produce a balanced population rather than a large population simply for the sake of having a large population. I mean balanced in the sense of age groups, with the right proportion of people at work, those too young to work, the old and the retired and so on, making sure also that we have a sufficient breeding stock to ensure continuity. Only in this way can we achieve a real improvement in the quality of the life of our population.
I deplore the generalisations about depopulation which we hear so often. Many people talk of it with bated breath as though Moses had read on a tablet from Mount Sinai, "Thou shalt not depopulate". Depopulation is not invariably bad in itself, provided that the reasons for it are good and provided that one is left with a continuing balanced population with the right number of breeding folk within it to ensure continuity. The idea of large numbers for the sake of large numbers is, in my view, a mistake, particularly in this age of automation when a machine can enable one man to do a job previously done by four or five.
One of the major faults of the present Government lies in their failure to tackle the problems which will invariably spring from carelessly encouraging the overpopulation of our islands. We are already one of the most densely populated countries of the world. I believe that, apart from such places as Singapore, Hong Kong, Malta, Belgium and Holland, we are the most densely populated country.

Mr. Russell Johnston: Surely, the noble Lord is talking about Britain rather than Scotland.

Earl of Dalkeith: One has to take the whole situation in view if one is to produce the right answers. I regard the distribution of population as very important. Here we are, living in these small islands which, by and large, are very densely populated compared with almost anywhere else in the world. Somerset House now goes so far as to predict that there will be another 20

million inhabitants of these islands by the turn of the century, in only 33 years. This will mean an average increase in the United Kingdom population of about 606,000 a year, which is equal to the populations of Edinburgh and Dundee put together.
This adds to my concern that we should aim to ensure an improvement in the quality of life of our people, and for this further reason I strongly urge the Government to consider setting up a permanent commission to examine our population growth and movement, with particular reference to Scotland, and its general distribution. This should be done throughout the United Kingdom. The commission would make to the Government an annual report of its findings, after weighing up all the considerations such as the effect of increased population on road congestion, shortage of houses, shortage of building sites and all the other problems which will inevitably arise. No one is yet giving this matter thought.
If we had a permanent standing commission to examine those points and report to the Government, I believe that the Government could introduce policies which made sense to ensure that there is a proper spread and distribution of the population to parts of the country where they would be most beneficial, and Scotland would gain.

8.45 p.m.

Mr. Donald Dewar: One thing on which all speakers have agreed is that we have a very real problem. In opening for the Opposition, the hon. Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger) fairly said that it was no new disaster and I therefore failed to understand why he should have expressed himself in such tones of pain in his comprehensive historical survey. I was surprised at his almost exaggerated horror, as though the facts dawned upon him for the first time when he sat on the Opposition benches. He made great play with the fact that we now have the highest emigration rate for a long time, and possibly ever, but should also have said that the rate of increase in the emigration figures had sharply decreased.
The hon. Gentleman took the 10-year averages and pointed out that they had made a comparatively steady climb. He did not say that although there had been


a steady climb in those years it is now flattening out and the great break-through the real escalation in the emigration figures came in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It may be cold comfort now to claim and the figures may need evaluation, that the increase has slowed down considerably and we are far removed from the situation as it was in 1959 and 1960, when we were not in Government and the emigration figures jumped 40 per cent. in one year alone.
I worry about the problem considerably, and I must worry about it coming from an area like Aberdeen. Paradoxically, its importance has been stressed by the fact that we have a remarkably low level of unemployment in the area at the moment. It is 2·4 per cent., which is the second lowest February figure in recorded history. That is an interesting comment on some of the more sensational, scaremongering prophecies made by hon. Members opposite when the Selective Employment Tax was introduced. We have too a remarkable shortage of jobs for women, which is perhaps a little strange in an area where we have 111·2 women for every 100 men according to the White Paper on the Scottish Economy.
This comparatively happy employment situation draws attention to the other great scourge of the North-East—emigration. Between 1951 and 1961 the population of the City of Aberdeen increased by 1·4 per cent., which only highlights the fact that the population of the surrounding agricultural hinterland decreased by 5·4 per cent. We have the classic example of a centre becoming a posting stage on the road south, a district which is now a hunting ground for firms in the south from places like Corby, which send up extremely prosperous and successful raiding expeditions to cream off people from the area. It is very sad and unfortunate that it is not the unemployed, but those who can easily get employment who are wanted by firms in the south.
The problem is one about which we are very sensitive, and I think about it a great deal. The hon. Member for Ayr did not stress as he should have done that there has been a change in the composition of the figures. He referred several times to the White Paper on the Scottish Economy. Paragraph 7 states that some two-thirds of those leaving

Scotland will go to other parts of the United Kingdom. On the opposite page indeed there is a neat and pleasing diagram which illustrates the point with curving arrows.
The ratio has since been reversed and the numbers of those leaving for abroad have gone up from the 1961 figure of just under 9,000 to the most recent figure in 1966 of about 25,000. It may be cold comfort again, but the same kind of pattern is seen in Britain as a whole, and there is evidence to suggest that the internal drain within the United Kingdom has to some extent been staunched and stopped.
Emigration is not something upon which people decide lightly. It is not the result of a sudden decision. This is not the result of a brief moment of discontent. Nor is it the result of an ill-considered impulse— "We have had enough and are getting out!" It is the result of a long, cumulative process through years of erosion and loss of confidence.
I would not go so far as to say that it was caused by utterly negative government or by complete negligence. But it has been caused by cursory and certainly perfunctory government. We are now paying for all those years not just of the Conservative Administration from 1951–1964 but even far further back, to before the war and the continuing tradition of Scottish emigration and the view that a lad of parts had to leave Scotland to find his fortune. I am sure that the hon. Member for Ayr will accept that it becomes quite artificial to start slanging specific policies in the last two years in an attempt to relate them to these present emigration figures.
There is growing evidence to show that this process of attrition has been going on not only in the emigration figures, but also in all sorts of other economic criteria and signposts for Scotland. For example, one should look at the employment growth rate between 1953 and 1963, during the period of Conservative government. In manufacturing and construction we were well behind England's growth rate. In insurance, banking and finance, the growth figures were plus 2·1 per cent. for Scotland and plus 3·1 per cent. for England.


The growth rate in professional and scientific services was plus 2·5 per cent. for Scotland and plus 3·3 per cent. for England. One must remember that, in addition, Scotland was starting from a particularly low base point, so that one would have thought that it would be easier for the Government to produce spectacularly better figures for Scotland.
Both the Scottish Council—quoted almost as Holy Writ tonight—and the politicians agree that diversification in jobs is necessary if we are to retain our people and also to attract others into Scotland. In this respect jobs like insurance, banking, finance and professional and scientific services are particularly important. These have all put up a disappointing performance over many years, which must have its effect on the present emigration totals, and the hon. Member for Ayr should have thought about that before quickly and superficially condemning the present Government for the situation.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: The hon. Gentleman has mentioned the need for diversification in banking insurance, scientific and other services. But these are precisely the kind of jobs most affected by the Government's Selective Employment Tax.

Mr. Dewar: It has not escaped my attention that the Selective Employment Tax is unpopular in Scotland. But taxation generally is not popular. No taxation is popular anywhere. I challenge anyone to show that Income Tax is popular, but that does not mean that it is unnecessary. That is the case with the Selective Employment Tax.
At this point may I deal with the hon. Member for Ayr's suggestion that people were emigrating because of the high taxation rate. At the same time, he and his colleagues in the Opposition are always pleading for more subsidies and help and for more injection of public capital into Scotland. This must all come from the public purse. One cannot reduce taxation while, at the same time, increasing provision for development programmes of the type that we all want.
But, to return to my main theme, this is all part of a very much wider problem which afflicts not only Scotland, but the northern part of England as well. The

Analysis of Civilian Population Changes, 1961–64, issued by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, shows that, during these years, the southern part of England—the Midlands, the South-East, London and the South-West—gained 3·8 per cent. in population while Scotland and the north of England lost 3·7 per cent. The sad fact is that the drift of population is not confined to Scotland. It also affects the whole northern part of the United Kingdom and has been doing so for a very long time.
Of course, answers are easy to find and glibly stated. One is diversification of industry. Another is the removal of the earnings differentials, which we all wish to see. But, as right hon. and hon. Gentlemen will admit, it is extremely hard, just as it was in the days of the Conservative Government, to find practical ways in which these things can be done.
Of course, we need better communications. There is nothing more aggravating to me than that English colleagues should appear to think that I have a five-day hike over polar icepacks to get to Aberdeen whereas I reach my constituency in two hours by air and, indeed, in that respect I am better off than many hon. Members who represent rural constituencies far nearer London. Of course we must worry that, on occasions, the transport users' consultative committees have been over-ruled and wonder whether the decisions have been rightly taken in specific cases. But, ultimately, these are drops in the bucket. Ultimately, we cannot say that any one individual thing like that, or any one particular project which we would like to see adopted by the Government, would affect this recurring and terrible problem.
The whole trouble for Scotland and the hard fact which we have to face is that we are in a geographically difficult situation and there is enormous resistance to moving into the area. I refer again to Ministry of Housing and Local Government figures. It is very significant, and ultimately it is terribly discouraging, to see from these figures that the area of Britain which had the biggest net increase in population in the years 1961–64 was the south-west of England, which gained 2·1 per cent.


Admittedly, some of that gain will be represented by retired people going to live in places like Torquay and the Cornish Riviera, looking for sun and recreation. But the area is regarded as being near and accessible and, therefore, gains and we in Scotland must pay a great deal of attention to communications if we are to have any hope of helping to get Scotland back on her feet and to reverse this increase in emigration which is worrying us.
I accept much of what has been said about housing, but I do not agree with the hon. Member for Ayr that it has so much to do with high interest rates, because high interest rates are common to Scotland and England. It might be more productive to consider the abolute cost of housing in Scotland. The Minister of State has an impressive record and did tremendously well in his previous office in trying to goad and persuade the Scottish private sector of housing to screw up its ultimate building targets, but there may well be a case for the Government considering a situation in which comparatively low site costs and comparatively low wage costs still result in consistently higher prices for new houses in Scotland than in England. That can have nothing but a deleterious effect and be a disincentive to the kind of executives whom we want to move into the area with new industries.
We have been told how miserable the Government's record has been, but I believe that it has been good. Certainly there has not been immense originality in the sense of departing from what our predecessors did, but I do not think that hon. Members opposite can bandy figures with us as to what proportion of the national purse has been spent in Scotland. I do not have time, and I do not
want to go back over that kind of A.B.C. of Scottish politics.
I do not want to go back to that kind of shadow boxing, into an almost ritual verbal dance in which someone makes inevitable responses to a predictable thrust, say, about housing figures. Anyone who is fair-minded will agree that the present Government have intensified the regional development policy and shown energy and initiative over the whole field and the whole range and have spent more money wisely and successfully.
What I want to know is whether hon. Members opposite have any major plans or major departures or new policies which they think could be adopted, and I am convinced that they have not. One hon. Member returned to the growth point scheme. The growth point scheme means only the arbitrary choice of areas and would certainly increase the imbalance in the Scottish economy which is almost as serious as the imbalance in the British economy, as the White Paper points out in paragraph 8.
I do not think that anything new has emerged. We must agree that the lines which the Government are following are the right lines and we must hope that we can overcome the tremendously difficult situation. For years, Scottish unemployment has been twice that of the rest of Britain. But the differential is being slowly chipped away and the trend reversed. The gap between Scottish unemployment and English unemployment is closing, so that in time we may get a similar diminution in emigration, if as I accept emigration and unemployment are correlated.
Tonight, we have heard a great deal about the Scottish Council's very useful and interesting report on emigration. The hon. Member for Ayr laid a great deal of stress on what the Scottish Council said, but I remind him that it is only two months ago that in its magazine "Scotland" the Council was writing about the Government's policy and the future of the Scottish economy and saying that its watchword and the spirit in which it looked forward to the future was one of "confidence and clarity" and specifically ascribing this to Government initiative and to Government help to the Scottish economy.
We have a job to do and that job is to sell Scotland and to try to break down the old psychological barriers which meant that people did not want to move into the north of England or into Scotland but were interested only in staying in the South. We cannot get on with that kind of job if we are to be hampered by pointless, sweeping and unhelpful criticisms by hon. Members opposite.
An official of the Scottish Council, speaking in my constituency on 25th February, was reported in the Aberdeen Press and Journal as asking:
What message has been put across from this part of the world just now?


I do not want a muzzled Opposition, but I want an Opposition which feels that they can offer helpful and constructive criticism and not make blanket condemnation because it happens to be convenient in terms of party politics. I do not want to be faced by hon. Members, who, even though they say that they do so with a heavy heart, manage to sound far too like latter-day Cassandras.

9.0 p.m.

Mr. W. H. K. Baker (Banff): First, may I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger) on a splendid speech on his first appearance on the Opposition Front Bench. Secondly, may I take up the point made by the hon. Member for Inverness (Mr. Russell Johnston), who talked about the Tory Party being a candidate for a good show at the Palladium.
I want to draw his attention to the article on the front page of The Times yesterday, referring to the mass rally of the Liberal Party at the Albert Hall, and describing it as
… a combination of an apotheosis, the bantomweight championship of the world, and a revivalist meeting".
That sums up the attitude of the Liberal Party pretty well.
Emigration from Scotland means two things: the loss of skilled workers and the loss to the service industries of professional people. This means that we get a reduction in the natural growth rate of the labour force and that the working population grows at a slower rate than the rest of the United Kingdom.
The paramount factor, as was mentioned by the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Dewar), is the wage differential which exists pretty well throughout Scotland and most markedly in the outer fringes.
Emigration from Scotland has shown a resurge towards the outside world, as opposed to the United Kingdom generally, during the last two and a half years. That is borne out by my own experience in my constituency. It is also underlined by the fact that we have a constant brain drain, as it is called. In my own constituency, no less than three people have turned to university degrees and are now teaching in universities in

three different parts of the Commonwealth.
In my own constituency there was a loss in population from 1951 to 1965 of 4,537, despite a growing birth rate. That represents 9·5 per cent. of the total population in 1951.
The hon. Member for Aberdeen, South also mentioned that the larger decrease, 7·7 per cent., come from the landward area, and amounted to 3,546 people. I would suggest that there is no absolute solution to the problem of emigration. I am not at all sure that anyone in Scotland wants to find an absolute solution, because if we did we would obviously cut off those people who wanted to go abroad, or south, to better themselves, and no one wants to stop Scots from doing that. We have a fine record both in England and overseas. One has only to look at the Labour benches to see the number of Scots who represent English constituencies.
One of the things that needs to be looked at is the pattern of employment in the depopulating areas. If I may refer to my own constituency, 2,868 men and women are employed in the extractive industries, 2,615 in manufacturing industries, and no less than 7,077 or 56 per cent., of the working population are in service industries. In 1965, 59½ per cent. of those leaving the county for jobs elsewhere were in the service industries. Recently, I received a letter from one of my constituents who complained that he was unable to get the services of plumbers. This is one of the many trades in the service industries which is being denuded by better wage rates elsewhere.
As other hon. Members have said, the Selective Employment Tax is most certainly having an adverse effect, and here I suggest a partial remedy to the problem. The Secretary of State for Scotland said in reply to a Question which I asked before Christmas—and he has said this elsewhere—that he was continually watching the effects of the S.E.T. on the Scottish economy, and his hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State this afternoon said, in effect, that that is what is happening. I suggest that if the Government must have this form of taxation it really should be selective, in that it helps those areas which most need industry and can do with more jobs being found and set up in them.


In an appendix to a very interesting article by Mr. Colin Clark in the Westminster Bank Review in July, 1966, he suggested something on the lines of a payroll tax. He suggested that the tax on the payroll of a firm in the London area should be about 21 per cent. varying to a premium payable in the Shetlands of 17 per cent., and 15 to 16 per cent. in the north and north-east of Scotland. I am not advocating a payroll tax, but it makes more sense in terms of depopulation and migration from Scotland than the present S.E.T.

Mr. Russell Johnston: I trust the hon. Gentleman is aware that he is quoting direct Liberal policy now?

Mr. Baker: I was quoting what I thought to be a sensible way of working the S.E.T. It would induce industrialists to set up in depopulating areas if they were given the incentive of a payroll tax.
The extra costs of these outlying areas were referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr. I have recently written to the Minister of State about a small industry in my constituency, book-binding and printing. The managing director of the firm informed me that he could get as much work as he could possibly cope with. Indeed, he said that he could take on 50 extra employees, but—and this is the great thing—the prohibitive cost of transport from Banffshire down to the central part of England where the distribution takes place prices him out. If we could provide some kind of incentive in the form of assistance, possibly a remote area subsidy or something of the nature to help the printing industry, it would be of great benefit.
My second suggestion is about I.D.C.s. These, too, have bean mentioned. I suggest that within the present development areas—and of course I am thinking particularly of my own area— there should be districts which are designated for certain distinct purposes. For instance, it seems ridiculous to me to allow a meat canning factory to be set up in a mining district. Why not designate the Moray Firth coastal area for such things as whisky distilling, the processing of agricultural products generally, forestry, wood processing, and fish processing?
Then, I.D.C.s should be allocated only to those firms willing to set up there. It

has been suggested during the debate that unemployment is not a major factor in migration. This is partially true and partially incorrect. Again, in my constituency, the rate of unemployment, male and female, in January, 1966, was 4·7 per cent. At present, for January, 1967, the figure is 5·4 per cent. That is well over twice the national average and well above the Scottish figure.
If there is any question whether unemployment is or is not a factor, I would suggest that the right hon. Gentleman visits Cork where he will see that there is there a great number of Scots, in particular, a great number of Banffshire folk, Mostly, they are there of necessity and they are semi-skilled. They are also of marriageable age, and the result is that we are gradually getting an ageing population in Scotland. What we must do, in the words of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Aberdeen, South, is to sell Scotland. We must do this to induce industrialists to set up in our area. If we can do that, we can get to the root of the problem.

9.11 p.m.

Mr. John P. Mackintosh: I followed very closely the argument of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger) in introducing this Motion, and I think that he was right to dwell on the Report of the Scottish Council, because to my knowledge it is the only systematic study of this question of emigration from Scotland. I was a little disappointed and distressed, after what I thought was a good expository opening, to hear him trying to link the high migration figures with the post-July, 1966, increase in unemployment in Scotland.
As he knows, the figures upon which the Scottish Council was working finished in June, 1966, and it said nothing about what had happened in the past year. Indeed, the sub-title of its Report, quite contrary to the impression given, was that increasing prosperity has been accompanied by a greater loss of people, and it says that the task of its Report was to investigate the paradox of why, when regional policies have been working better in Scotland than elsewhere, there has been a corresponding increase in emigration. This is the core of the problem. These figures were increasing


when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble) was in charge, through good and bad years alike.
This is why it is a mistake to drift into suggestions that if this tax or that tax were removed, if this factor were dealt with or that problem solved, the matter would be cleared. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Ayr dealt with the interesting fact that according to the Scottish Council Report half the emigrants go overseas. It did not investigate, no one has investigated, the motives of these people. The hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Dewar) was absolutely right when he said that this is a problem for a longer term decision, a major decision, something not to be lightly arrived at. I was very surprised when he suggested that it might be due to taxation and various other factors. The problem is the differential between Scotland's overseas emigration and that for the south-east of England, Wales and the north of England. If these taxes were changed they would be changed over the whole of the country and would not affect the Scottish differential one iota, not one fraction.
A second and much more serious aspect is the internal migration problem. The whole key here is that, whereas Scotland loses proportionately less than Wales or the north of England to the south-east of England, not enough of these people return. If we were to achieve the objectives of the White Paper, which would be to end net emigration, we would want 15,000 people returning to Scotland. We are failing to get this, and this is happening irrespective of Government and irrespective of good or bad years.
Hon. Gentlemen have gone into side issues such as schools and education. It was a little unfair of hon. Gentlemen to raise this, and I am glad that the hon. Member for Midlothian (Mr. Eadie) dealt with the question of schools. If anything this is an incentive to come to Scotland. Scottish education has a proud tradition —I will not go into its relevance now—but this reputation is if anything an incentive. All the encouragements are to go to overcrowded high cost housing areas and high cost transport areas such as those in the South-East. I do not think that these minor matters come into it.
The crucial question—and this has been studied in detail—is the basic facts of new industrial development in Scotland, housing, amenities, wage levels and —I am surprised that nobody mentioned this—the distribution of Government agencies and Government employment. These are key factors in the situation. It is these which right hon. and hon. Members opposite have not tackled, and I do not blame them. The present Government have tackled them along the lines which right hon. and hon. Members tried, only with greater success and greater intensity.

Mr. Noble: Has the hon. Gentleman forgotten the Post Office Savings Bank, or does he accept that as an achievement of his Government?

Mr. Mackintosh: Not at all. I am not forgetting that. What I am saying is that hon. Members opposite tried all the regional methods of inducing people to come to Scotland of which they were capable, including the Post Office Savings Bank.
In the last debate in the House on Scottish economic problems, the Leader of the Opposition, who was then the Minister responsible for regional development, said that no finer or more thorough programme for guiding people to Scotland could be discovered than that employed by his Government. The present Government have taken these policies a stage further. They have made the whole of Scotland a development area. They have introduced the Highland Development Board. They have produced a plan for the Borders. They have introduced 40 per cent. cash grants for plant and machinery. If hon. Members had not taken so long, I should have liked to have developed this theme in my area, the Borders.
The Conservatives made it clear that they could do nothing about depopulation and would do nothing about it. Their leader came to Berwick-upon-Tweed a month before the 1964 election and said that he would go on developing the growth points, but would do nothing for the intervening areas of the Borders and the Highlands. From this Government we have had the Borders plan. We got permission for the 40 per cent. grant for the area. We have two advance factories in my area. We have a unit studying


the question of development of the central Borders.
I should have liked to say had I been able to develop my theme that we need to go in the direction in which we are going and not lose impetus or be sidetracked. We want a continuation of the Government's policies, but with greater emphasise. We want Berwick-upon-Tweed as well as the Galashiels area declared a centre for development. We want a Tweed Valley Plan. We want to develop an expressway between Newcastle and Edinburgh. We want to bring Government activity and employment like the Post Office Savings Bank not only to Glasgow and Edinburgh but throughout Scotland —in Inverness and Perth and the regional capitals.
A mass of activity is possible along the lines which the Government have been trying. We must go further. There is no escaping the hard work and solid effort which hon. Members are putting in. We shall carry on with it, whether there are convenient or inconvenient by-elections.

9.17 p.m.

Mr. Ian MacArthur: I think that the whole House will be grateful to the Opposition for selecting for this debate a subject which is of particular concern to every right hon. and hon. Member and, indeed, to every citizen of our country. All the speeches during the debate have shown how conscious we are of the problem, the extraordinary range of subjects which any discussion of the problem involves, and how worried many of us are about the trend of emigration.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger) opened the debate very ably with a skilful analysis of the nature of the problem based largely on the Scottish Council's Report, which I commend to the House. The hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Dewar) reminded us of the continuing nature of the emigration problem. That I accept. Emigration has been with us for years. It will continue to be with us for years. What I hope we shall see changed is the nature of emigration. We shall never restrain the young Scot from having the questing spirit which looks for new horizons. It is right that it should be so. We will go on losing some of our

best young people searching for new opportunity in the world. But we must strive, all of us, to reach a future in which the young Scot is not forced out of Scotland simply because of the lack of opportunity at home or by factors which none of us can yet precisely define. The Scottish Council has made a brave start and I hope that this will be the beginning of the systematic type of surveys and studies which this enormous problem requires for the future.
I am glad that the Secretary of State is to wind up this debate, because part of our case is a charge against the Government and it is made all the stronger by some declarations by the right hon. Gentleman in the past. In his election address in 1964, he cried:
We must … stem the tide of emigration.
How right he was. That was a fine call to the electors and, no doubt, they responded to it, remembering the right hon. Gentleman's constant criticisms and bitter accusations when he was in opposition.
So the hon. Member for Kilmarnock became the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Scotland, determined to "stem the tide of emigration." Within a few months, he called public attention to his authority and power in Scotland. He was reported as saying in March. 1965:
I decide things in Scotland
adding, for good measure,
the Chancellor of the Exchequer cannot tell me what to do.
Thus the right hon. Gentleman, clothed in this splendid authority, set out to stem the tide. Emigration that year increased to 43,000. I accept at once, however— I want to be fair—that he could not have been expected to stem the tide as quickly as that—of course not, for reasons which I shall explain. He then decided to write a plan, and last year he produced his White Paper "The Scottish Economy 1965 to 1970, a Plan for Expansion." This was to halve the emigration loss by 1970.
The Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan), who was present until a few moments ago, emphasised this in his election address at the General Election


last March. One complete paragraph in his address read:
Labour is determined to stop the drift to the South. For the first time we have a National Plan for Scotland.
And so he demonstrated that the party opposite depended on a national plan at least to ease, if not completely solve, the emigration problem. That was last year. Emigration last year increased to 47,000. There is nothing to suggest that it will not increase sharply again this year. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr quoted the observation of the chairman of the Scottish T.U.C. on this score.
The central point of my charge against the right hon. Gentleman tonight is that in face of all the evidence to the contrary, he clings obstinately to the White Paper. He has rejected the frequent proposals from this side of the House that the White Paper is sorely in need of revision. It was written, its introduction stated, "within the framework of the National Plan", but the National Plan has collapsed and the Government accept that their targets are now nonsense. So the framework for the Scottish Plan has been taken away for repair.
I ask the Secretary of State seriously to look at his targets again, because there are now grave doubts about the basis on which the plan rests. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr showed earlier, emigration to the rest of the United Kingdom must be reduced to nothing by 1970 if the right hon. Gentleman's target is to be met. We will soon be halfway to 1970, but emigration to the rest of the United Kingdom has amounted to 44,000 people over the last two years. To say that this will be reduced to zero, which is what, in effect, the plan says, is to ignore the evidence before our eyes. There is no sign of a decline this year so far.
On what basis of planning, then, can the right hon. Gentleman persist in his claim that emigration to the rest of the United Kingdom will suddenly melt away to nothing by 1970? There has been no improvement in the factors which cause people to leave Scotland. In fact, there has been some worsening, as a result of the failure of the Government's policies, and several of my hon. Friends have covered this in their speeches.
Certainly the Minister of State can claim that more jobs have been created, and we welcome that. However, I believe that recently the number of men at work has fallen marginally. Indeed, the total population of Scotland has fallen, as my hon. Friend pointed out, and it has fallen for the first time in 40 years.
We welcome the new jobs coming to Scotland and the new jobs which are still to come. Unlike right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite, we do not sneer at the pipeline, as they used to do, and perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will be fair enough, when he comes to reply, to recognise that most of the 48,000 jobs which have emerged from the pipeline during the last two years were pumped into it by the Conservative Government. During our last 18 months in office, over 1,600 new inquiries were received by the Board of Trade from industrialists who wanted to expand in or into Scotland. That was an average of nearly 100 every month. Over half of those had been approved by October, 1964, and right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite should not point to the jobs which have been created as evidence of the Secretary of State's own success.
On page 9 of the Scottish Plan, we see in Table B that the number of new jobs which the right hon. Gentleman expects to be created in Scotland is an average of 22,000 for each of the six years to 1970. In fact, the figures for the last two years are rather better, and I welcome that. That figure compares with the annual average of 39,000 new jobs created in the four years 1961 to 1964. The Minister of State shakes his head, but he will see that on page 9 of the White Paper.
The increase of 39,000 new jobs created in each of those four years on an annual average basis more than overtook the sharp decline in the older industries during that period. If the hon. Gentleman looks at the table, he will see that that point is covered. In those four years, 27,000 jobs were lost in shipbuilding, marine engineering, mining and quarrying alone. However, while we can argue these points backwards and forwards, and we on this side win the arguments, it is the future course of emigration to which we must turn our attention, and it is that which concerns me most of all.


I was interested in the proposal by my noble Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North (Earl of Dalkeith) for a balanced population, and I was impressed particularly by his argument about the need for the development of growth points and to invest in success.
What evidence is there for the claim in the National Plan that, in effect, emigration will be reduced so that domestic emigration disappears altogether? That is the effect of the forecast in the National Plan. The Minister of State spoke with confidence about the new investment grants, and we will see how they work. There are conflicting views about their total value. We shall have to see if they are better or worse than the old system in terms of value. However, it is only fair to point to some disturbing evidence. In industry, the Scottish Council has noticed a marked fall in the level of inquiries from companies in the South interested in location in Scotland. Fortunately, that has been balanced by a stepping up of interest from North America, but the domestic outlook in industry is not encouraging. Recent surveys have shown that the confidence of industry in the future has recently fallen sharply, and that is not a climate which fosters industrial expansion.
New jobs do not come only from manufacturing industries. Scotland depends heavily on the service industries. This was recognised in the White Paper, which constantly referred to the importance of service industries in Scotland—but within a few months of publishing this White Paper last year this message from the Secretary of State to the service industries was overtaken by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who slapped his vicious Selective Employment Tax on the very service industries which the Secretary of State had pledged himself to encourage.
Who was "deciding things" in Scotland then? Certainly not the Secretary of State, as he boasted a year previously. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had "told him what to do". What he did do was to pretend, in the face of all the evidence, that the tax was a good tax. The Secretary of State, in May last year. was reported to have said that the Chancellor was very much looking after the interests of Scotland in the Selective Employment Tax. He went on to accuse the Highlands of "whining" because the

tax would bleed over £2 million a year out of the seven crofting counties alone. It is small wonder that people lose faith in the Government's care for Scotland and leave the country when the Minister who claims to decide things in Scotland talks that sort of rubbish to them.
The last quarterly report of the Scottish Development Department refers to the "success of the tax". Let the right hon. Gentleman try that on the people who have been squeezed out of their jobs by the tax. Let him tell that to the part-time workers, the married women and the weaker folk who are always the most dispensable and who have been squeezed out in all our constituencies.
The hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) put forward the interesting proposition that taxation was irrelevant to emigration. I cannot agree. Taxation often bears more heavily on Scotland than on England. One has only to consider the impact of the fuel duty and to see what it costs, and the way in which Scotland carries the large differential charge on coal and the higher gas charges, and the way in which taxes, duties and selective charges bear heavily against Scotland, to realise this.
It is not only a question of creating new jobs in manufacturing and service industries. There are other spheres in which employment can be created. There is wide scope for the movement of Government offices to Scotland. The White Paper refers to the move of the Post Office Savings Bank to Glasgow. The hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian seemed to have forgotten about that until he was reminded of it by my right hon. Friend the Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble). The White Paper took the credit for it, but my right hon. Friend made the decision.
What have this Government done to deploy Government offices into Scotland?
I will tell the House. They have put the computer centre in Manchester. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will say something about the Mint, which we hope will go to Scotland. Perhaps he will say something about the establishment of a Scottish Forestry Commission, which we need and look for. There are other similar possibilities.
I recognise that this sort of development may not bring a lot of jobs directly to Scotland. The Post Office Savings


Bank brought 7,000 jobs, but that was a special case. Generally, the movement of Government offices to Scotland would not bring a vast number of extra jobs directly, but they would bring associated jobs, and, perhaps more important, create a climate of authority and success which would attract new employment and new people. My hon. Friend the Member for Ayr spoke also of the need to put our resources strongly behind education.
At a time when we are trying to put all our efforts behind the recruitment of teachers and the building of new schools to meet the great challenge which we all want to see met by 1970–71, it is depressing to see that, in Glasgow, over 2,200 primary school children are on half-time education. That is not attractive to people to stay in Scotland or to come to Scotland. I recognise the difficulty of solving that problem, but I am sorry that, in that circumstance, the right hon. Gentleman has shelved the Roberts Report, which put forward some proposals which could have helped.
Housing was mentioned by the hon. Member for Midlothian (Mr. Eadie), in a well-balanced and constructive speech, and by other hon. Gentlemen. The Secretary of State recognised the importance of housing in a speech at Dundee a few days ago and we all accept that it is an important element of this problem. The right hon. Gentleman will have seen that the Scottish Council called a day or two ago for a greater deployment of resources behind housing. We all want to build more houses and we have all had targets for more houses. The only difference between us is that we meet our housing targets and the right hon. Gentleman fails to meet them.
I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman some questions and to call his attention to a very important element which has emerged from the debate. It was touched on by the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian and by my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr. This is the extent to which there is a relationship between unemployment and emigration, and this ought to be studied. There appears to be evidence that, when unemployment rises sharply, a rise in emigration follows 18 months or so later. That was why, as I said fairly to him, much as the right hon. Gentleman wanted to stem the tide,

it was too much to expect in 1964–65, because of this time lag.
For example, there was a period of high unemployment in 1963, of which the right hon. Gentleman keeps reminding us. That period was reflected in the emigration figure of 1965. But the high unemployment figure of 1963 was followed by a marked drop in the unemployment figure and it should have been reflected statistically in a fall in the emigration figure last year. But it was not: instead, the figure went up sharply. This was a movement against the trend which could have been expected from the statistical pattern which I have described.
More recently, there has been a pattern of rising unemployment in Scotland from last August, increasing recently at a more rapid rate than unemployment in the South. This increase from last August may have contributed to some extent to the present increase in emigration, if the reports which we have heard from the Scottish T.U.C. are correct. But the main effect will be felt next year. If this pattern is repeated, emigration will reach a new peak next year, two years before 1970, the year when, according to the White Paper, net emigration in domestic terms is to disappear.
All this, of course, has a long-term effect on total population. A net loss of 1,000 emigrants a year costs about 30 births in each year for the next 10 years and about 20 in each of the following five years, with a decreasing proportion thereafter. On last year's figure of 47,000, this will cost us 19,000 children in the future. We know about the brain drain and the brawn drain; now there is a "bairn drain".
This, of course, will increase as the emigration figures go up. All the figures show an alarming statistical breakthrough. Emigration is up, against the trend which we could have expected. The population is down for the first time in 40 years. I recognise that the birthrate was down—and, incidentally, the death rate was up. However, one cannot get away from the statistics. It is worth noting that the marriage rate was slightly up, so perhaps we can look forward to better things.
Another important fact is that the population trend for the future is depressed by the loss of births through


emigration. On top of that, unemployment has been increasing since last August, and that can be expected to have a growing impact on emigration in 1968. Thus, there are four points of concern which, taken together, create a disturbing pattern; emigration up—and up against the trend; the population down for the first time in 40 years; the population trend for the future depressed by the bairn drain; and unemployment now growing, as it has been since last August, which will inevitably have a serious effect on the emigration for next year. Statistics are cold things. Nevertheless, they reflect a deep human and social problem.
Against this background, which is incontestable, how can the Secretary of State cling to his plan? The Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Greenock (Dr. Mabon), did not say a word about the future beyond pointing to new jobs. The issue is wider than that. How can he, too, cling to the Scottish Plan when the whole basis of the emigration targets in it have been clearly shot to pieces by events? My hon. Friends and I ask the Secretary of State to reject his plan, forget his discredited targets, and produce a new plan based on reality.

9.42 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. William Ross): I had hoped that we were to have a really serious debate about emigration, with an analysis of exactly what was meant by the increase in the figures. I had hoped that hon. Members would consider what those figures implied for Scotland's future and how they had come about. I did not expect that we would have a discussion about emigration back only two years and that most of the remarks of hon. Gentlemen opposite would be related to what had happened in only the last year for which figures are available.
It is all very well for hon. Gentlemen opposite to talk about 1966, but the figures for that year are not available. They are discussing the figures for 1965 to 1966—and if the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur) wants to place the responsibility for what has been happening on me, he must remember that the only figures available since the time when I became Secretary of State are those for the years June, 1964–when I was not Secretary of State;

so some of the responsibility must lie with hon. Gentleman opposite—to June, 1965, and June, 1965, to June, 1966.
This shows that when the hon. Member for Ayr blames me for the decrease in the number of births—even taking into account natural factors—he must appreciate that such an endeavour is not worthy of a town that is supposed to be famed for producing honest men. The hon. Gentleman will have to more honest politically if he wants to continue to represent me in the House.
I admit that I was the person, along with my hon. Friends when we were in opposition, who, year after year, drew attention to this trend of emigration. Although we did that, not an hon. or right hon. Member of the then Government even made a speech about it. For 13, 14, or 15 years they showed no concern for this problem.

Mr. Younger: Really!

Mr. Ross: The hon. Gentleman was not here then. I was.

Mr. Younger: In opposition.

Mr. Ross: The hon. Gentleman is quite right. The trouble was that I was in opposition. Indeed, from mid-1951 to mid-1964 the number of people who left Scotland totalled 400,000. Hon. Gentlemen opposite must live with that fact. If, as a result of that number of people leaving Scotland, we find today that the number of young people in Scotland is down and that the number of births is down, hon. Gentlemen opposite must relate that to what has happened over all these years. It was because we recognised that this was a drain that we. kept drawing attention to it.
Hon. Members started to do something about it, because they said this in paragraph 6 of the Central Scotland Plan, which was produced in November, 1963:
Scotland's net loss of population through migration represents the balance between the numbers of persons moving from Scotland and into it.
We all knew that. The last sentence of the paragraph is what matters:
But the net loss of younger people cannot continue at its present level without serious damage to the prospects of long term economic recovery.
At that time the published figure for 1961–2 was 29,500. By the time this


publication was read, we knew what the latest figure was; it was 34,000. In 1963–64, it was 40,600. In 1964–65, for part of which time the right hon. Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble) bears responsibility, the figure rose to 43,000.
We have seen a stemming of the drift to the South. What has happened in the past three or four years has been the tremendous increase in those going overseas. This is a matter which must concern us, although those who have gone into these matters over 140 years tell us that this evens itself out—that there is a trend, and then there is a stop. People do not suddenly decide to go overseas and then go. It takes some time before people decide to emigrate. There is a considerable time lag.
The continued rise in these figures from 9,000 in 1960 to 21,000 in 1964–65 and to 25,000 last year should concern us a little more than political argy-bargy. There is a tremendous selective drive by the older Dominions on Scottish skills and crafts. This is not the emigration of those who have been driven to the shores by clearances and who have to go. This is not the emigration of people who are driven because of lack of jobs. This is the emigration of skills and crafts which are attracted to other areas.
We are faced with this attraction of skilled crafts. We must be able to use them ourselves. We will use them, and we are increasingly using them in Scotland. We must provide counter-attractions in Scotland. Many of these people return. However, I shall not rest content with letting this matter go and doing nothing about it. The right hon. Member for Argyll said that his plan was the first real attempt to get things right in Scotland. That was on 3rd December, 1963, after the right hon. Gentleman and his Government had been in power since 1951.

Mr. Noble: rose—

Mr. Ross: I have deliberately highlighted these facts because we must set ourselves the target of bringing the figure down if we want to create satisfactory expanding and developing industrial and social opportunities in Scotland.

Mr. Noble: rose—

Mr. Ross: I am sorry. I have not the time.

Mr. Noble: The Secretary of State refuses to give way, but he is wrong.

Mr. Ross: We can relate these questions to unemployment. When the right hon. Member for Argyll was Secretary of State from November, 1962, right through to March, 1964, the average monthly figure of unemployed was over 100,000.
There is a relationship between unemployment and emigration. This is what Lord Clydesmuir himself said:
… as unemployment in Scotland starts either to rise or fall, it is followed some 18 months later by a corresponding rise or fall in emigration from Scotland. … Undoubtedly, a large part of the explanation of the high net loss of population from Scotland in the last two years is to be found in the general state of the Scottish economy as it was in 1962–64 when unemployment was high".
and when the right hon. Gentleman was Secretary of State for Scotland.

Mr. Noble: Will the Secretary of State give way?

Mr. Ross: I am sorry. I have to try to answer all these points.
At least twice I heard the hon. Members who spoke from the Dispatch Box opposite say that the population of Scotland had not dropped in 40 years until recent times. This is just not true. I can give the occasions in this century when it dropped, but, equally, I can tell the House that the last occasion came in the consecutive years 1952 and 1953. If hon. Members want the list of years, here it is: 1912, 1913, 1923, 1924, 1926, 1927, 1928, 1929, 1930, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1965, 1966. Those are the years in which net migration exceeded natural increase and the population declined. In 1929 the decline was 15,700; in 1924, it was 25,900.

Mr. MacArthur: rose—

Mr. Ross: The hon. Gentleman had his chance and made a mistake. Now he must accept the facts which I am giving.
The hon. Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger) spoke about the Selective Employment Tax. We are watching this, but we cannot trace any sector —the Ministry of Labour says this—where there is any large single block of redundancies which can be directly attributed to the effects of the tax, and neither does it appear that any particular


sub-region in Scotland has suffered a disproportionately large amount of unemployment as a result of the tax.
The hon. Gentleman spoke about the development areas. It was not until we became the Government that facilities or incentives were provided to these areas for expansion. The Borders, for example, are only now coming to life with new employment opportunities. The noble Lord the Member for Edinburgh, North (Earl of Dalkeith) suggested that there should be a commission. We are already at work. We have a group in the Borders —local authorities, private individuals and industrialists —responding to the opportunities to be secured from the advantages which we have given. It is the same in the North-East and the Highland areas.
The right hon. Member for Argyll will remember his statement about the Highlands when he became Secretary of State. The Highland problem, he said, would have to wait until we had solved the unemployment problem of Scotland. The unemployment problem got worse. He never solved it.
The reflation which has been spoken of has already started in Scotland. The hon. Gentleman does not know the difference between a freeze and a squeeze. He has already been corrected twice.

Mr. Noble: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way now?

Mr. Ross: In recent months, we have increased the incentives available to these areas from 40 per cent. to 45 per cent. The shelter which has been given has been seen to be of advantage to the growth of industry.

Mr. Noble: The right hon. Gentleman is inaccurate again, but he will not give way.

Mr. Ross: The right hon. Gentleman knows quite well that I am not inaccurate on that point.

Mr. Noble: rose—

Mr. Ross: I shall not give way. The right hon. Gentleman was corrected on that misquotation by my hon. Friend in one debate. He repeated it today, and it is a waste of time trying to persuade him that he is ever wrong.
During the past two years we have had the greatest expansion of industry into Scotland that we have known since the war. The year 1965 was even better than the year in which we brought the motor car industry. [An HON. MEMBER: "Who brought it?"] The hon. Gentleman brought us some problems, too. The year 1966 was only a little less. In 1965–66 there were 19 million sq. ft. of new factory space as compared with 11 million in the last two years under the hon. Gentlemen opposite.
I am sorry to have to give them good news about the first two months of this year. In January and February the new factory space of new projects into Scotland for which I.D.C.s have been issued is 2·8 million sq. ft., the best that we have known for those two months. Those things are actually being done and are actually happening. Hon. Members opposite do not have to take my word. They can see what Lord Clydesmuir said in the report in the Stock Exchange Gazette of 24th February:
The processes of developing and diversifying the Scottish industrial economy have made enormous strides. Industrial output in Scotland has grown faster than the national average over the last three years; … in 1965, capital expenditure by manufacturing industries in Scotland was £115 million, 25% up on the previous year; …
Yet hon. Members opposite talk about our export performance not equalling that of anywhere else in the United Kingdom, and the moaners come here tonight using this debate on emigration even to talk about schools and teachers. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman knows how long it takes to train a teacher, and what did his Government do about getting any change? The hon. Member for Ayr spoke scathingly of Scottish education, but it is something of which we should be proud. There is no controversy over 99 per cent. of the area of Scotland about the comprehensive education we provide, and all that the hon. Gentleman was able to fasten on is a little pocket of privilege in Edinburgh and Glasgow and create something out of that. It is time he was really proud of what we have done in Scotland rather than bleat about it as he did.
We heard a new one tonight about the Forestry Commission. It is news to me that the Conservative Government ever contemplated setting up two separate


headquarters for the Forestry Commission. It is well known that the decision to move part of the headquarters to Basingstoke and leave a substantial part in London was taken under the Conservative Administration. The hon. Gentleman talked about the Post Office. The party opposite took their decision in principle against the wishes of the people in the Post Office, and the hon. Gentleman well knows the task we had in ensuring that the Post Office Savings Bank did go to Glasgow because it was a right decision and getting the co-operation—

Mr. Noble: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I cannot have two right hon. Gentlemen on their feet at one time.

Mr. Ross: Of course, statistics on migration are inadequate. But changes were made in 1963. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we have already got an inter-Departmental committee working on the possibility of how we can get addi-

tional statistics without burdening people with tremendous questions when they leave this country.
Right hon. and hon. Members opposite have got more than they bargained for. They have been playing politics, but I welcome the fact that they have given us the opportunity to give the answers to many of these points. We discussed housing last week and we heard from the people who were prepared to see house-building run down from 39,000 in 1953 to 26,000 in 1962. The hon. Gentleman was never complaining then. I am surprised that even the Buccleuchs did not emigrate from Scotland.

It being Ten o'clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

ADJOURNMENT

Resolved, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Ioan L. Evans.]

Adjourned accordingly at Ten o'clock.